Superior Person's Tuesday!

Procellous, a. Stormy or tempestuous

It can also be used to describe someone's mood

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Procellous appears in the first.

Wanda Coleman

Sad news: Black Sparrow author Wanda Coleman, the "unofficial Poet Laureate of Los Angeles" passed away on Friday.  She was the author of more than twenty books, and was awarded the Lenore Marshall National Poetry Prize for Bathwater Wine.  She was also a finalist for the National Book Award with Mercurochrome.  Her other works include Jazz and Twelve O'Clock Tales, Native in a Strange Land, A War of Eyes and Other Stories, Mambo Hips and Make Believe, and The Riot Inside Me.

"Words seem inadequate in expressing the anger and outrage I feel at the persistent racism that permeates every aspect of black American life. Since words are what I am best at, I concern myself with this as an urban actuality as best I can." Coleman once told Contemporary Authors.  She was "most eloquent in poems, illuminating the ironies and despair in a poor black woman's daily struggle for dignity but also writing tenderly and with humor about identity, tangled love, California winters and her working-class parents," Elaine Woo wrote in the L.A. Times obituary. We've posted some excerpts from her poems below.

From Bathwater Wine:

Bubble Eyes Declares War

this is the side i am forever on

arms were taken up at Avalon & Manchester
on a school ground two score & five years ago
i am still fighting the absent horde
of fairer-skinned mockers
who would not play with me because i was too dark
who stole my revengeful reports to God
& passed them around
& my writings caused so much disruption &
hurt so many mean little feelins that the
white teacher man had to intercede
to quell the violence, to dab away the angry tear
remove the fists from my hard-pressed head
then when, skirts flying, they had returned
to 4-square and double dutch
he took me aside privately, stared at me
with those great wide gray eyes
then laughed, said i had quite a gift
to keep such papers at home or face
the principal & suspension & that some day,
if i had the convition & the courage
i'd give something great back to my people

And also from Bathwater Wine, a poem entitled "Letter to my Older Sister,"  for her sister who died in childbirth:

"in the morning i'm greeted by
talking leaves and ghost mushrooms

and the soft mist off the coast,

the scuttlings of ring-tailed

opossums stealing food from feline

odalisques too sated to stir, the

flittings of doves on the mate

and in my reverie i seek you out

to share my favorite lullaby

it is i who sits beside you

it is i who sings from the shallows

it is i scratching against this silence"

http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-wanda-coleman-20131124-1,0,3349194.story?page=1#axzz2lfRpS3m8
http://www.blacksparrowbooks.com/author.asp?first=Wanda&last=Coleman

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Kakistocracy, n. Government by the worst citizens. For reason which can only be speculated upon, there is no word for government by the best citizens. Aristarchy means government by the best-qualified persons, but the latter are not necessarily the best -- indeed, aristarchy could quite conceivably be a kakistocracy.

 

Not to be confused with a "khaki"tocracy.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Kakistocracy appears in the first.

Books That Matter

By Addie Byrne

David R. Godine, Publisher, prides itself on publishing books that matter for people who care. So...what makes a book matter? And why should anyone care?

  

Having interned for a few months now at this publishing house, I’m beginning to get a real appreciation for why books matter. Books don’t just happen. In today’s world of blog posts, online status updates and tweets, it is oh-so-easy to lose an appreciation for the written word. After all, everyone can write! But not everyone can write books: there is a lot that goes into them. First comes the idea; some poor, suffering author has a thought in their head that they feel the world needs to know about. That’s the easy part. The hard part is being disciplined and persistent enough to turn one puny little thought into an entire book. Fighting through the self-doubt, the distractions, and the writer’s block, these long suffering authors come out on the other end with a manuscript, and you can be sure that they think it matters.

The next question is: does anyone else think it matters?  The author’s challenge now is to find someone who agrees with them; they must find someone who you’ve managed to reach, simply with letters on a page, who trusts your idea, and who thinks that more people need to read what you’ve written. This is surely one of the most difficult tasks for an author, but just as difficult for the publisher. Even a small publishing house, such as this one, picks so few of the manuscripts it receives. One must rely on a trained eye, good judgment, and at the end of the day, a solid intuition while choosing books. And that’s just the beginning. Then comes the extensive editing and publishing process. Endless emails are exchanged, meetings are held, and many water cooler discussions are had in an attempt to make a manuscript into a book. What does the book look like? What size should it be? What color cover, and what design? What kind of paper? What font? A whole team of people comes together to do work on the book. Together, with the author, they take these letters on pages and make them into something great, something beautiful…something that matters.

Now it’s ready for people who care. Why should anyone care about books? Because reading is fun! More than television, or movies, or video games, books engage a reader’s imagination, providing clues to create a whole world in the reader’s head. People should care because reading makes you smarter in so many ways. It expands your vocabulary. It teaches you about the world, be it real or imaginary. It introduces new lines of thought and challenges old ideas in your head. Reading, in almost everyway, expands upon your self. People should care because reading a book about the Holocaust can allow you to experience, if just for a moment, the fear and terror of the time. Reading a book about a young man’s coming of age in Africa lets you learn about a life completely different from your own. Reading of the death of a child can make you feel in ways you weren’t necessarily sure you could. People should care because books aren’t just books; they are experiences, they are feelings, they are moments of time trapped on a page, forever there to read. And that’s why we are people that care.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Hyperhedonia, n. A condition in which abnormally heightened pleasure is derived from participation in activities which are intrinsically tedious and uninteresting.

Of course, it helps if you're really good at said activities.

For a case study near you, see any golfer.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website.  Hyperhedonia appears in the Second.

Appalachia Now Available For Purchase!

David R. Godine, Publisher is proud to announce one of our most recent books: Appalachia by Builder Levy. 

 
Builder Levy is part of a grand humanist continuum that includes Lewis Hine, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, to name a few. Intertwining the traditions of fine art, social documentary, and street photography, Appalachia USA is an aesthetically and socially significant book that celebrates the human spirit; it is this spirit that shines through the coal dust in the faces of miners, in mothers struggling to protect their children, and in ravaged but resilient communities. Levy's photographs and accompanying captions capture the tension, the dignity, and the enduring humanity of this troubled corner of America. Includes 69 spot-varnished tritone photographs on large 9 9/16" by 12" pages.

For more information, or to purchase the book, check out our website here.

Why We Make Things and Why It Matters- Now Available For Purchase!

David R. Godine, Publisher is pleased to announce one of our most recent books, Why We Make Things and Why It Matters by Peter Korn.

In this moving account, Korn explores the nature and rewards of creative practice. We follow his search for meaning as an Ivy-educated child of the middle class who finds employment as a novice carpenter on Nantucket, transitions to self-employment as a designer/maker of fine furniture, takes a turn at teaching and administration at Colorado's Ander­son Ranch Arts Center, and finally founds a school in Maine: the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, an internationally respected, non-profit institution.

This is not a "how-to" book in any sense. Korn wants to get at the why of craft in particular, and the satisfactions of creative work in general, to under­stand their essential nature. How does the making of objects shape our identities? How do the prod­ucts of creative work inform society? In short, what does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? Korn draws on four decades of hands-on experience to answer these questions eloquently, and often poignantly, in this personal, introspective, and revealing book.

Peter Korn is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, a non-profit school in Rockport, Maine. A furniture maker since 1974, he is also the author of several how-to books, including the bestselling Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanship (Taunton Press, 2003). His furniture has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums.

For more information, or to purchase the book, check out our website here.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Aporia, n. Patently insincere professings, e.g., by a public speaker, of an inability to know how to begin, what to say, etc.

Would you know what to say to me?

This is a very high-class word indeed, and should be used only in conversation with Samuel Beckett or Patrick White. Anyone else will assume you are referring to an unpleasant form of skin disease.


Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website.  Aporia appears in the First.