COMPLINE

COMPLINE PREORDER: NOW W/ HOLY GHOST!

We still need approximately 50 people to step up and support Compline by preordering David Brazil’s the ordinary and Jackqueline Frost’s The Antidote before they’re released in May/June. As such, David and I collaborated to sweeten the deal. If you order both Jackqueline and David’s books for $25, you’ll receive a brand new Brazil chapbook entitled Holy Ghost III & Holy Ghost IV FOR FREE (along with an additional free Compline publication of your choice). That means you’ll receive two long-players and two chapbooks for only $25 (not bad, huh?!). Holy Ghost III & Holy Ghost IV will not be available for purchase separately. You can only secure a copy through this preorder deal. If you’ve already ordered the books, rest assured: you will receive this chapbook in addition to your other books. If you haven’t, we only made enough to cover the first 125 preorders, so get your order in NOW and support small press publishing! Click here to order and thanks for your support!

COMPLINE PREORDERS: HELP US HELP YOU!

Compline is on the verge of publishing two HUGE long-players this spring, the ordinary by David Brazil and The Antidote by Jackqueline Frost, two of the most anticipated books to come out of the Bay Area in recent memory, and, incredibly, “first books” by both authors. 

In order to produce these crucial interventions this season, however, I need folks to purchase them in advance. As opposed to chapbooks made from re-sourced and recycled materials, full-length books are incredibly expensive to make. Like, really expensive. Further, Compline receives ZERO institutional funding, which means I pay for these books completely out of pocket. In other words, every book I make takes food directly out of the mouth of my innocent, six-month old baby. Which is finally to say that, by preordering these books, you are directly helping to feed a defenseless baby and you’re also receiving two of the most important poetry publications of the decade to boot. Seriously.

These books are going to be BIG, they are going to be BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED, and they will be ready for the post in April/May. In the meantime, I hope you’ll trust my decisions as a curator and a book designer, and invest in these books NOW so I can afford to get them in your hands. There are a few ways to do this: you can order Jackqueline or David’s books on their own for $15 a piece, and I’ll cover shipping and postage when they’re ready. OR, you can order both books for only $25 (cheap!), I’ll cover shipping and postage, and I’ll throw in an additional Compline publication of your choice FOR FREE. That’s how we do it!

Don’t hesitate. Don’t over think. Preorder these books now if you care about the future of contemporary poetry. Or if you care whether babies live or die.

*To order both David Brazil’s the ordinary and Jackqueline Frost’s The Antidote, along with a FREE Compline publication of your choice (simply outline which you’d like in the paypal comments), CLICK HERE.

*To order David Brazil’s the ordinary, CLICK HERE.

*To order Jackqueline Frost’s The Antidote, CLICK HERE.

As always, we are grateful for your continued support!

CRAIG DWORKIN | THE CRYSTAL TEXT

David Brazil | To Romans

David Brazil’s To Romans was printed in an edition of 100 over the course of a single day on the occasion of David’s reading with Michael Cross, CJ Martin, and Eleni Stecopoulos at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library on August 11, 2012. It was distributed for free and subsequently out of print by August 12, 2012. That said, To Romans will be included in Brazil’s forthcoming Compline long-player, The Ordinary, which should be available in early 2013. Compline would like to thank Stephen Novotny for his help printing this volume.  

Thom Donovan | The Hegemon Say

Thom Donovan’s The Hegemon Say was printed in late August 2012 by Michael Cross & Stephen Novotny on the occasion of Donovan’s reading with Sara Larsen & Suzanne Stein on September 14, 2012. This book is a homage to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and was designed with her breathtaking book-object Pomegranate Offering in mind. As such, The Hegemon Say comes packaged in individually spray-painted burlap sacks. The book itself was printed from start to finish on the Heidelberg. $5 for the chap (cheap!) and $3 for shipping (these books must be packaged carefully!). Buy one here before it’s too late! 

Sara Larsen | Merry Hell

Sara Larsen’s Merry Hell was designed and printed by Michael Cross & Stephen Novotny over the course of a hectic week in September in anticipation of Sara Larsen’s reading with Thom Donovan & Suzanne Stein on September 14, 2012. It was printed from start to finish on the Heidelberg, and features “interpretations” of hand-painted movie posters from Ghana. $5 for the chap (CHEAP!) and $3 for shipping (I need to package these books pretty carefully!). Buy yours here before it’s too late!

Eleni Stecopoulos | Daphnephoria

I’m super excited to announce the release of a new Compline chapbook, Eleni Stecopoulos’s Daphnephoria. Over the course of the year, I hope to print completely letterpress micro-run chapbooks as a way to highlight brand new work by some of my favorite poets while also raising money for more expensive full-length projects. My plan is to treat these books as press fundraisers: to make them using mostly recyclable material completely by hand, while selling them for a ludicrously cheap price to inspire interest and support from local poetry communities.

Eleni Stecopoulos is the author of the totally wonderful Palm Press long-player Armies of Compassion, and the world’s foremost expert of the Poetics of Healing (according to me!). By purchasing this book, you’ll get a glimpse at what Eleni’s currently working on (like, right now!) while directly helping to support the next two Compline projects; the long-awaited edition of Leslie Scalapino and Kiki Smith’s The Animal is in the World like Water in Water and David Brazil’s first full-length collection, Economy. And to make it even more appealing, I’ve decided to try a two-price model: if you live in the Bay Area and you can get the book from me personally, it will only cost you $5 (I know!! Nuts, right?! This is the price of a coffee drink these days!). If you’d like the book shipped (even if you’re local), it will cost you $8. This is not, of course, to punish friends and colleagues living out of state, but to try to keep the price down for folks I might see in person around town. It is also to inspire us to actually say hello to each other and share a moment of camaraderie in an otherwise completely inhospitable world!

I’d also like to make it easy to give these books as gifts to friends (and they’re worth it, I’m telling you!), so buy one for a friend and I’ll include a little personal note from you! This might be the perfect time to remind someone you’re thinking about them by sending them a badass chapbook in the mail!

Also, it’s a super short run, so get it while you can!

So, if you’d like to get the book from me in person (at a reading, or at my house, or at some clandestine location), and you’d like to spend $5 to get something rad while supporting the work I do with the press:

CLICK HERE!

If you’d like me to send the book to you, and you’re willing to spend $8 of your hard-earned money to support often-not-super-commercially-viable poetries (!!), click the button below:

CLICK HERE!

Spread the word, please, to friends and family! We appreciate the support!

TWO BOOKS @ SPD

CJ Martin’s Two Books is now available at Small Press Distribution. Buy it for yourself, or your coworkers, or your school’s library, or your local bookstore, or your friend who needs to read something a little more, well, fractured…

CJ Martin’s Cosmetic Practice

Thom Donovan just posted a totally essential Q & A with CJ Martin over at Wild Horses of Fire, wherein Chris says, among many other really astounding things:

“In part, why the term cosmetic appeals to me is that its critical edge highlights the profanity, the complete trashiness, of getting visible—-the fucking faith lift is brilliant (as pun) but just completely terrifying (as principle)—-dear lord, suck out the fat of my faith, lift it up & stitch me back! Suck out the nation fat (deport it, suppress it), iron any wrinkles & make me look young again. The proximity b/w faith & face is kind of astounding in its obviousness, but as anything more than proximity, I’m not entirely convinced. That interface would necessarily be interfaith is kind of a given after a certain point, but as program it’s so UN (‘In your faith!’, might be more like it, in terms of an encounter in the world).”

Umm. You should probably read the whole thing…Find it here. And while you’re reading this crucial exchange between Chris and Thom, you should listen to Chris read from Two Books at the con/crescent reading series (thanks to con/crescent curators Nicholas DeBoer and Jamie Townsend for preparing this audio file!).

2011.04.02 CJ Martin at con/cresent

And if you haven’t heard this short bit of Chris reading on Dona Stein’s “Poetry Radio” program, you should totally spin this while cleaning the house or something:

C.J. Martin reading on Dona Stein’s Poetry Radio

And finally, if you don’t have Two Books yet, you need it (them?!). Seriously.

CJ Martin | Two Books | Compline

Click HERE to purchase!

We at Compline are fairly ecstatic to announce our first publication: CJ Martin’s Two Books. Compiling Martin’s first two poetry collections in one volume, Two Books is the perfect introduction to this super visceral, lyric-assemblage poetry. We are honored to debut this work, and we’re certain you’ll be floored by this collection!  

To prove it, take a look at the poem CITY here.

And while you’re at it, here are some resources to help familiarize yourself with Martin’s project:

Margaret Konkol on WIW?3: Hold me tight. Make me happy from Two Books

Andrew Rippeon on CJ Martin in ON: Contemporary Practice

CJ Martin reading on Dona Stein’s Poetry Radio

CJ Martin reading at the Poetry Project:

CJ Martin lives in San Marcos, TX, where he recently transitioned from teaching at TX State University to working as a bookbinder’s assistant at BookLab II. With Julia Drescher, he edited Dos Press, and he’s currently on the masthead for Little Red Leaves & LRL e-editions. He’s the author of four chapbooks: 1978 (Self-published, 2010); WIW?3: Hold me tight. Make me happy (Delete Press, 2009); Lo, Bittern (Atticus/Finch, 2008) and CITY (Vigilance Society, 2007). His essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in ON: Contemporary Practice and Jacket2.