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George Kalamaras

Marsupial Mouth Movements by George Kalamaras Červená Barva Press, 2021

George Kalamaras, former Poet Laureate of Indiana (2014-2016), is the author of eleven full-length books of poetry and seven poetry chapbooks. He has received several national prizes for his poetry, and he spent several months in India in 1994 on an Indo-U.S. Advanced Research Fellowship. He is Professor of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne (formerly Indiana University- Purdue University Fort Wayne), where he has taught since 1990. He lives with his wife, writer Mary Ann Cain, and their beagle, Bootsie, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In this collection of poetry, Marsupial Mouth Movements, former Indiana Poet Laureate George Kalamaras continues his ongoing series of Bone Sutras, poems that explore the interface of the human and natural world. Following his Surrealist forebears, Kalamaras explores the complexity of language, with startling images and juxtapositions, as a vehicle for visionary poetics. These poems seek to connect biological impulses to the realms of the spiritual and the discursive. In the process, the poems honor the varieties of human and animal life-mammals, marsupials, and the insect world, even probing the intelligence and "vision" that lie at the heart of molecules.

This Kalamaras text delights in the swirl of all-life-power, tasks forth, as if saying to all of us "... sound me toward dissolve." In this life-stream we go through zebra, hippopotamus, marsupial to Chilean poet Nicanor Parra and Van Gogh-all after the thing-in-itself, the as-is, the naked sumptuous flickering. Everything craves, even collectively, pulled toward extinction-in the constant "struggle for freedom." The voice here, an almost-Panda, spotted by "childhurt," goes into "belly-blur"-all is in a "shamanic meltdown." You can taste this volume, its layers and collages of multi-texture, you can read up close and attempt to unlock its codes of juxtaposition, dissonance and multiple bodies, you can also take flight through its various ceremonies and rites of passage, transformed, transfigured and reborn. Or you can sit and inner-eye witness the universe crushing in and out of you. A mega-realized set of teachings, poems, seeing-texts. A rare, one-of-a-kind, genius, collection.
-Juan Felipe Herrera, United States Poet Laureate, 2015–2017

George Kalamaras's Marsupial Mouth Movements redefines reincarnation to include myriad transmigrations within a single lifetime. The poet is a traveler who has discovered that "all time happens at once," and his nomadic spirit can inhabit any time, any creature, or any object with wonderful agility. He offers us a surrealist "Mantra Diksha" that initiates us into the Bretonian affinities of everything to everything. Through the example of the fetal marsupial crawling into the mother's pouch to gestate, Kalamaras shows us that birth is not an event but a continuum. The dazzling lyricism of this book, the depth and beauty of its vision, will change the way the reader sees the world.
-Lawrence R. Smith, author of The Map of Who We Are

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-30-7 | 79 Pages

Michael C. Keith

New Release: Quiet Geography by Michael C. Keith (Fiction)

Quiet Geography by Michael C. Keith Červená Barva Press, 2022

Michael C. Keith is the author or coauthor of more than two dozen groundbreaking books on electronic media, including one chosen by President Clinton for his official summer reading list. Beyond that, he is the author of an acclaimed memoir (The Next Better Place, Algonquin Books), a young adult novel, and 19 story collections- his latest Insomnia 11 from MadHat Press and Pieces of Bones and Rags from Cabal Books. He has received accolades for his academic and fiction writing.

In the tradition of the classic micro-fiction of renowned writer Lydia Davis, this singular collection explores the full range of human endeavor and behavior in all their varied and discrete (and not so discrete) manifestations. Keith's mini-stories, perhaps more appropriately called prose/poetry because of their lyrical nature, take the reader to places only a truly vivid and original imagination could. Often disquieting in theme and plot, the pieces within these covers invariably contain meaningful truths and lessons while managing to accomplish this in a witty and affecting manner.

In Quiet Geography, Michael C. Keith fashions a multitude of miniature worlds, and in each one he finds the perfect narrative distance and tone of voice to infuse the comic with the dark and the dark with the comic. Unique, yet intentionally ambiguous, these micro-stories are shapeshifters. Chameleon-like, Keith's creations change color and reveal different patterns so the reader may respond differently each time he or she re-reads them. These wry, richly detailed flash fictions repay each reading by offering gem-like, myriad angles of reflection.
-Allen Wier, author of Tehano and Late Night, Early Morning

Quiet Geography's cleverly dark humor stays lively throughout. It normalizes the strange and estranges the normal. There are cynical vibes, but they're not overwhelming; besides, as someone (Seneca?) said, cynics are really idealists at heart. It’s good to know Michael C. Keith is out there demonstrating the delights of idealistic cynicism. This is one of the best reads I've had this year.
-Betsy Delmonico, editor-in-chief Golden Antelope Press

$18.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-74-1 | 194 Pages

Leaning West by Michael C. Keith Červená Barva Press, 2020

Michael C. Keith is the author of 15 story collections and an acclaimed memoir (The Next Better Place). He retired emeritus professor in the Communication Department at Boston College. Prior to his four decades in academe, Keith was a radio broadcaster. He has been nominated for several awards for his fiction and is the recipient of numerous accolades for his books on media subjects.

"Stories set in the West inspired by landscape that has long intrigued and beguiled the author."

"The short imaginative bursts in Leaning West capture the feel and mystique of the west. The book filters the western experience through Michael Keith's unique and somewhat twisted view. His stories are humorous, thought provoking, weird, and always entertaining. I grew up in the west. The stories ring true and I can relate to the places he takes us. For anyone interested in the west, or simply a unique perspective on life, this is a great read."
-Michael Brown, Emeritus Professor, University of Wyoming

Cover Art: Susanne Riette

$8.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-28-4 | 29 Pages

SLOW TRANSIT Stories by Michael C. Keith Červená Barva Press, 2017

Michael C. Keith is the author/coauthor of 30 book volumes and dozens of articles on the subject of radio and broadcast studies. In addition to his non-fiction titles, Keith has published over a dozen creative works, including an acclaimed memoir: The Next Better Place-a young adult novel: Life is Falling Sideways-and 12 short story collections: most recently Perspective Drifts Like a Log on a River. His fiction has been nominated for several awards, among them the Pen/O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize, the National Indie Excellence Award, and the International Book Award.

"Michael Keith is doing his part to keep the short story alive in this world of novel, novel, novel... Let us hope he keeps those original stories coming."
-Brad Watson, author Miss Jane

"The characters in Slow Transit transport you to a universe of unfulfilled desires, doubts, and dreams made all the more terrifying by the author's keen sense of the dramas that make life worth living. Highly recommended."
-Ed Hamilton, author The Chintz Age

"Keith's output and beautiful prose continue to rise."
-Adam Johnson, author Fortune Smiles

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9984253-6-8 | 226 Pages

Jiri Klobouk

My Life With Blondie by Jiří Klobouk Červená Barva Press, September, 2013

Jiří Klobouk writes fiction, radio plays, poetry and essays. He discovered jazz when he was twelve and later began to visualize the world around him through a camera lens - he worked for 20 years in television. These experiences are reflected in his writing. He created a body of work in which as one critique noted: "We could feel the rhythm and see things from unexpected angles." Many short stories have appeared in literary periodicals: Partisan Review, Chicago Review, Stories and Artful Dodge. For Winter Wolves, a story published in Mid-American Review, he was named outstanding writer in the 1985-86 The Pushcart Prize edition. His list of books includes: My Life with Blondie, Winfield, Radio Plays I, Radio Plays II, Music After Midnight, The Stair Climber, Anti-Communist Manifesto (1975), The Homecoming, JAZZ II: Parents and Third Wife. The author lives in New York City.

Translated from the Czech by Helena and John Baker

A fifty-year-old man, named Harley Davidson, has suffered from a vivid fantasy, a condition not as rare as it might seem: alongside reality, which he perceives accurately, he has created for himself a second, parallel world of dreams. When he was seventeen, he fell in love with Blondie he saw on a magazine cover. For the next thirty-three years all he wants is to tell her that he loves her. As time goes by it seems it will never happen, but then one day...

...thirty three years later Harley learns that Blondie (inevitably an aging starlet) is arriving in town to perform at a local bar. She has reserved a room in the rundown hotel where Harley works as a receptionist. Finally, he is convinced his dream will come true.

In this novel, we become acquainted with Harley’s entire life - from childhood, through the demise of two marriages. We follow him on his journey to Austria, Portugal, Germany and Vietnam. It is a story of a human being who, inspired by the power of love, keeps his spirit intact against all odds and circumstances.

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9883713-6-1 | 284 Pages | In Stock

Irene Koronas

Pentakomo Cyprus by Irene Koronas Červená Barva Press, 2009

Irene Koronas is the poetry editor for the Wilderness House Literary Review and Ibbetson Street Press. She is the author of self portrait drawn from many (Ibbestson Street Press, 2007). She also has several chapbook publications, the latest being, Zero Boundaries (Cervena Barva Press, 2008). Irene’s work has been widely published in numerous literary journals including Lummox, Free Verse, Posey, Arcanam Café, Spearhead, Index poetry, Unblog, Haiku Hut, Lynx and the anthologies Bagels with the Bards and WHLR Anthology, 2006. Articles written about Irene have appeared in The Boston Globe, What’s Up With Your Words, Sedaca, The Alewife, Spare Change, The Somerville News, and the Cambridge Chronicle.

These poems of beauty and strength unfold one into another as Irene weaves an engaging, thoughtful cacophony of experiences lived out over six weeks in Cyprus. I was drawn into a visual arrangement of days by an extraordinarily gifted communicator. I couldn't put this book down until I lived through all the wonder and discovery on display.
-C K Johns, author

Irene Koronas writes with the confidence of a life-long poet. She knows the ground on which she stands. With tenderness and honesty she takes her readers to the churches, kitchen, and dusty paths of her ancestral village. Orange trumpet flowers, rusty rocks, pregnant dogs, figs, saints, kneaded dough, peacocks, icons, olive oil and old women pepper the pages of Irene’s poetry painting a generous, complex, vibrant picture of Irene’s recollections of six weeks in Cyprus. At its heart, this is a love story. It traces the passion, ambivalence, and longing of desires that cannot be resolved simply. In recounting her journey, Irene invites us to look for the remains of our own histories, our own relinquished passions.
-Jennifer Peace, Ph.D.

In, Pentakomo Cyprus, Koronas finds her way through each day, image by image, sound by discrete sound, giving us the crystalline collection of things, our mixed media realities. The collection is a mobile of emotions made small and delicate or large and brusque. It is this honesty that lets the reader into a life that is wondrously and marvelously made, tiny step by tiny step, great leap by great leap.
-Afaa Michael Weaver

$15.00 | ISBN 978-0-578-02262-8 | 50 Pages |

Out of Stock

Zero Boundaries by Irene Koronas Červená Barva Press, 2008

Irene Koronas has a fine arts degree from Mass College of Art Boston. She is a multi media artist working with paint, collage, mono-printing, artists books and poetry. She is currently the poetry editor for Wilderness House Literary Review and is the submissions editor for Ibbetson Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in lummox journal, free verse journal, posey magazine and on line zines such as arcanam café, spearhead, index poetry, unblog, haiku hut and lynx. She has seven chap-books: 'work among friends,' 'where words drip,' 'perception, tongue on everyday,' 'species,' 'flat house' and 'to speak the meaning of being.' Her most recent book 'self portrait drawn from many' is published by ibbettson street press. Her poems also appear in anthologies.

$7.00 | 41 Pages |

Out of Stock

Richard Kostelanetz

Bilingual Poems by Richard Kostelanetz Červená Barva Press, 2007

Preface From the book:
If the principal theme of my poetry has been invention, one motive of the poems written since Wordworks (1993), my first elaborate collection, has been the clashing of languages. This reflects initially my interest in writing poems in languages I barely know--for instance, the French and German Strings reprinted there. As always, I make a move and then look for surprising results. Here one move is interweaving the letters of words in two languages; another comes from jamming two words together to form not only a larger word but an evocative intersection. Many other poetic developments should follow from these initial moves. Some depend upon understanding two languages; others, not. –Richard Kostelanetz, New York, NY

Review from Doug Holder's Authors Den:
http://authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=3792

$7.00 | 17 Pages | Out of stock

Samantha Kostmayer-Sulaiman

The Chronicler of Indifference Poems translated from Arabic by: Hussam Jefee-Bahloul & Samantha Kostmayer-Sulaiman Červená Barva Press, 2024

Bahloul (A.k.a Hussam Jefee-Bahloul) is a poet, musician and psychiatrist. He was born in Syria in 1983 and currently practices and teaches at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He writes poems and essays both in Arabic and English. He has two books of poetry published in Arabic, and has published essays in both languages. Bahloul is also a musician and songwriter. His project "Ta'sheeq" aimed at dovetailing the elements of poetry, music and visual arts together. The project toured many cities and performed around the US between 2015-2018. His current musical project Souq El-Jum3a (Friday Market) is a musical collective that aims at making original Arabic music keeping up the spirit of classical songs.

Samantha Kostmayer is a writer, editor, educator, and translator from New York City. She graduated from Columbia University, CUNY, and the American University in Cairo with degrees in history, forced migration, and law; Samantha is currently completing her Ph.D in philosophy. She is writing a volume of short stories and her translations have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies. Her poetry has appeared in English, Swedish, and Croatian.

"...What surprises me is the liberty in which he [Hussam] writes his poems; creating new images, shoving new vocabularies in the ancient dictionary of poetry...Not only a buffoon bird, but also pain, disappointments, sadness, and futureless horizons. Thank you Hussam for this fearlessness and sensitivity."
—Maram Al-Masri, acclaimed Syrian-French poet, author of (A red cherry on a white-tiled floor) (2003)

"The opening line of the Arab Surrealist manifesto of 1975 proclaimed: “With disgust we shove aside the dregs of survival and the impoverished rational ideas which stuff the ash-can-heads of intellectuals.” While the author may or may not bear the direct or conscious influence of that movement begun in the 1930s, the tone and imagery of these eminently readable poems, ranging from the flippant to the wistful, with an updated pinch of post-modernist irony and self-referentiality thrown in, fashion poetry, and succeed in finding a universalism, out of the same rejection of the dual illusions of nationalism and rationalism."
—Alex Cigale, poet, editor, translator, lecturer in Russian Literature at CUNY-Queens College

Cover art and design: Kevork Mourad (The Offering, 2015, ink on paper, 114 x 241 cm) by Khalil Younes

$18.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-85-7 | 80 Pages

Charles S. Kraszewski

Diet of Nails by Charles S. Kraszewski Červená Barva Press, 2014

Charles S. Kraszewski. Poet and translator. Recipient of the 2013 Award for the Promulgation of Polish Literature and Culture by the Union of Polish Writers Abroad (London). Recent publications include Beast (poems), Rossetti's Armadillo (verse translations and essays), Irresolute Heresiarch: Catholicism, Gnosticism and Paganism in the Poetry of Czeslaw Milosz. Creative in both English and Polish, he is a frequent contributor to Odra (translations of T.S. Eliot and Robinson Jeffers).

Cover art: Navajo Antelopes by Stefan Tejk

$17.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9910091-5-2 | 87 Pages | In Stock

Len Kuntz

The Dishonesty of Certain Mirrors by Len Kuntz Červená Barva Press, 2018

Len Kuntz is a writer from Washington State and an editor at the online magazine Literary Orphans. He is the author of three books, The Dark Sunshine, I'm Not Supposed To Be Here and Neither Are You, and The Dishonesty of Certain Mirrors. His latest story collection, The Deep End, is forthcoming from Ravenna Press in 2018. You can also find more of Len's writing at: lenkuntz.blogspot.com

Poetry Summary:
In this searing collection of personal poems, we encounter a myriad of everyday struggles and loss deftly turned on their head. From dementia to child abuse to the disintegration of relationships, each subject is rendered with raw abandon as well as an empathetic heart. There's lush music in the language of these poems, no matter their length. True to the title's promise, there's also a magical pulling back of the curtain, so that we are not only voyeurs privy to the author’s innermost life and experiences, but our own as well. Stepping inside these pages is like finding a diary replete with secrets, hopes and broken dreams, a diary that could well belong to our closest friend, or perhaps, a diary written by our own hand.

$17.00 | ISBN: 978-0-9984253-4-4 | 94 Pages

Joanna Kurowska

Inclusions by Joanna Kurowska Červená Barva Press, 2014

Cover Art: Untitled (1991) by Paweł Młynarczyk

Joanna Kurowska immigrated to the U.S. in 1988. After publishing two books of poetry in Poland-Ściana (The Wall), 1997 and Obok (Near), 1999-she gradually switched to English as her poetic medium. Many of her poems have appeared in American and European journals. In 2013, eLectio Publishing released The Wall & Beyond, a volume of her Polish poems translated into English. Another collection of Joanna's poetry, The Butterfly's Choice, is forthcoming in 2015, from Broadstone Books.

Inclusions is Joanna Kurowska's first book of originally English-language poems.

These mostly short, lapidary lyrics present to the reader not only a fallen world of detritus, missed emotional connections, thoughtless consumption, empty gratification, but also a world of fragile and fleeting beauty, raptures that last "but a fraction of a second," and art-making that redeems us. A town's soul leaks away as globalization grinds everyone and everything to sameness; a bishop's suit in a window is "a skin missing a body;" and a price is put on everything: "The trees have turned into business letters." This is simply the "now," as Kurowska sees it. But these are spiritual poems, though the god evoked-invoked-is not the property of any single group or mission. In the title poem, the speaker longs "to make sure/that i, too, am included/in the world deposited/on God's tongue." And always, the human possibilities, and the beauty of the world, are what we transcend to. In the final poem, to her son who asks what the meaning of life is, the poet replies, "Next to me, a feather swirls/In the air. A draft carries it/When the window is open" … To me, this is a lovely, non-Western image of the inclusion the poet prays for.
—James Cummins, Author of Still Some Cake

Inclusions is a book of surprising, reflective encounters with things as small as ants and as big as God. The ants, however, are big enough to make us think about the meaning of life and death. God, on the other hand, is small and light enough to fit into a snowflake. The poems listen to silence, loved ones now gone, cupboards and birds. Joanna Kurowska's slender verses pray by playing and masterfully lead the reader to the realization that "knowing is letting go."
—Katia Mitova, Author of Dream Diary

$17.00 | ISBN: 978-09910091-6-9 | 53 Pages | In Stock

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