kamini press
Category: poetry books| May 3rd, 2009
Kamini Press was started in 2007, named after a small village on Hydra island. The editor has had his summer house there for 12 years and the name is in homage to some former “neigbours” in the village. In 1939 Henry Miller arrived together with Katsimbalis (the Colossus himself) to visit the artist Ghikas in his mansion overlooking the Kamini harbour. Miller describes this in “The Colossus of Maroussi”. The ruins of Ghikas’ house are still there. The poet, author and singer Leonard Cohen’s house is also close by in the Kamini village. It was there that he wrote many of his songs and books. The beautiful photograph on the back cover of “Songs From a Room” was taken in his Kamini house.
Kamini Press publishes fine poetry in handmade, self assembled chapbooks, usually together with original cover art. Most books also come in limited editions with watercolors. No rush jobs, one book per year was the idea, but this is flexible and we try to keep up the tempo. We like to present the poetry in a good way, to respect the writers. We agree with the great publisher William Packard of the New York Quarterly, who said he wanted to present the printed poem in the best possible way; he thought that “bad printing and mediocre book design inevitably militate against a fair reading of a poem”. He even found different typeface for each poem in his magazine. We don’t do that, but we agree on his thoughts.
SOME NATURAL THINGS
poems by Glenn W. Cooper
32 pages of poetry, mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork by Henry Denander. First edition of 100 copies, all signed by the poet. This is the first title from Kamini Press and the first book in the Kamini Press Poetry Series.
Please click the cover to enlarge.
7 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide
Glenn Cooper lives in Tamworth, Australia and for many years he’s been widely published in the small press and beyond. This is Glenn Cooper’s sixth book of poetry.
GERALD LOCKLIN says: I have thought very highly of Glenn Cooper’s work for many years, he’s a throwback to the glory days of the Wormwood Review. A first-rate poet in the debut of a very attractive new series.
ANN MENEBROKER says: Glenn Cooper’s poems are a walking companion in the rain. Something to think about under an umbrella. The poems are reflective of our losses, but also include the humor that grows like a palm tree in the snow. Glenn is ever the student, contemplating the forces of life which we have no control over. He says it best himself, the poignant need to write about “the small pleasures, just to make life beautiful.” And he does.
DAVID BARKER says: I highly recommend Glenn Cooper’s SOME NATURAL THINGS. A light touch, deep resonance. He writes about rain better than anyone I’ve ever read. As if rain was his dead sister. A beautifully designed little book that reads like a big book.
ADRIAN MANNING says: Congratulations on the first Kamini Press publication. The chapbook itself is beautiful – a top class publication, and the poetry from Glenn Cooper is fantastic. I recommend it to anyone.
JEFFREY WEINBERG says: A fantastic book…Fine poetry..Gorgeous design and print job.
T.K.SPLAKE says: …the cooper poem “gravy” is one of the best writings I can remember in the past long while…
STEVENALLENMAY of Plan B Press writes on his blog: The beauty of this blog is when I happen across the “globalization” effect of small presses, take for example the new small press out of Sweden Kamini Press. Poet/artist and now publisher Henry Denander has created a new line of finely made chapbooks. One of the first is by Australian poet Glenn Cooper. His poetry is well written. The chapbook is very handsome indeed. Cover art by publisher, overall completely worth checking out.
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN at The Guild of Outsider Writers: Sparse, rainy day influenced poems. In ‘The Sandy Bottom Exposed,’ Cooper makes the correlation between the health of a local river and the health of the community: “the old timers say the river has never looked so bad/so sick/and the crime rate is up around here too/ so maybe there’s some truth to what Jung says.”
These poems are more philosophical than whimsical and not asking to be taken lightly, as many nature poems I have read prior to this I am more likely to skip over for stating the obvious; but not these, he writes about the real natural world, ecology, and the affect on his psyche and his relationships. He reflects on the fragility and also the overwhelming power of nature, sometimes told through the experience of watching a small child, as in ‘Four Year Old Collecting Eggs.’
These are beautiful poems that never get bogged down by over-sentimentality, many poems dealing with the topics of love, nature, fragility and getting older. Highly recommended.
BIRD EFFORT
by Ronald Baatz
32 pages of poems. First edition of 225 copies out of which 125 are signed by the poet. Twenty-five special copies contain an original signed water color & ink painting by Henry Denander. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork by Henry Denander.
7 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide
14 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide for the limited edition with signed artwork.
I think Ronald Baatz is one of America’s finest poets. I know that many will agree with me when I say so. You probably know Baatz already but if you don’t you should read this book as an introduction, since it is as good as his other books, and they set a very high standard. A book consisting of fifty beautiful, short poems with birds as the central theme.
I don’t know how many times I have read these wonderful poems during the process of putting this book together but still I like to have the book close by or in my pocket when travelling. I love these minimalist poems.
I think this chapbook will one day come to be regarded as somewhat of a classic – a chapbook that people later will try to locate, only to find that a mere 225 copies were made and all are gone.
Ronald Baatz is not so keen on writing about himself or on metrying to present him. He wrote once: “the only bio i ever give is that i’ve been living in the same farmhouse close to twenty years.” Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present the fourth chapbook in our poetry series. Henry Denander
THE POET SEES HIS FAMILY SLEEPING
poems by Samuel Charters
34 pages of unpublished poems. First edition, 200 copies, all signed by the poet. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork and author portrait by Henry Denander.
7 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide
Samuel Charters began his life with small presses in the 1950s in New Orleans when he shared a rundown French Quarter building with Gypsy Lou and Jon Webb and made his first magazine appearance in an issue of their ground-breaking magazine The Outsider. Beginning in the mid-1960s his poetry chapbooks, broadsides, and literary essays were published by Berkeley’s Oyez Press, many designed and printed by the legendary Graham MacIntosh. With their own Portents press, he and his wife Ann published small pieces by, among many others, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Charles Olson, and Robert Creeley. With Ginsberg they created the book Scenes Along The Road, the first look at the story of the Beat Generation.
In the other world of publishing he has written innumerable books on jazz and the blues, as well as novels, biographies, translations, and travel memoirs, and worked with Ann on the first biography of Jack Kerouac. He is also responsible for the poetry section of their college introduction-to-literature textbook Literature And Its Writers, now in its 4th edition. Their current project is the authorized biography of Beat novelist John Clellon Holmes. His own most recent book is the first history of New Orleans jazz, A Trumpet Around The Corner.
A sample poem from The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping:
Conundrum
a
There is no hell,
but I stumble there – often.
No heaven,
but I journey there – sometimes.
THE PLOT OF IL TROVATORE
and other poems
by Gerald Locklin
32 pages of poems. First edition of 300 copies out of which 125 are signed by the poet. Twenty-five special copies contain an original signed water color & ink painting by Henry Denander. (First come first served…) Mini-chapbook format, in wraps. Cover artwork and author portrait by Henry Denander.
7 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide
14 EURO incl. shipment cost world-wide for the limited edition with signed artwork.
Gerald Locklin is the author of over 125 books and chapbooks of poetry, fiction and criticism with over 3000 poems, stories, articles, reviews and interviews published in periodicals.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI wrote about Locklin: “I have never been let down. I have been picked up, lifted up, tossed into that rare area: excellent writing with verve, writing that laughs, writing that reads easy yet says something. That’s a good package.”
MARVIN MALONE wrote: “His poems are about real people and places that illustrate with common language the classic themes of love, envy, honesty, integrity etc. He is pro-people.”
EDVARD FIELD: “The male spirit in him remains honest, bighearted, sentimental, generous, gentle, vulnerable, but sassy in the face of adversity – qualities that could be applied to as few American poets as to presidents. I think of him as a wonderful, protective big brother every sensitive little boy needs.”
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