Forklift, Oeno Bin #24 (Vinter 2012) is now available!

At AWP in Chicago we’ll have 25 copies of Wolf’s Milk: The Lost Notebooks of Juan Sweeney translated by Chad Sweeney, Forklift Books’ first ever full-length book. The book will actually be released later in March, so make sure to stay au courant, and get yours before they’re gone. Stop on by our Table, i16, at AWP, and nab yourself a copy for only $12.00 ($3 off the cover price)!

Fin-dex

The little cart creaks down the street/pulled by a man talking to himself.   73

who rolls a quarter across his knuckles/to get them working again.   26

he’ll explain everything,/he who doesn’t have a clue or far too many.   41

clouds that were HIS idea.   19

who sends them on missions & they always return/dented, immutable, unalloyed.   49

Debussy, when he felt his opera going nowhere,   let it.   55

Now imagine you’re that frog.   22

inherited by a great niece/along with the love letters bound in silk ribbon.   46

The wolf’s mouth is full/of strawberries, the morning’s a phantom/hum of glories.   10

the stem unraveling into flower, into flame,/into seed and wind, into dirt, into into into.   37

The trees our fathers planted we will not see again.   67

Sleep, tomorrow/we’ll go to the sea.   39

Before tackling the nude,/you must work for months with wooden blocks.   69

you’ll have lots to do later/inspiring abstemious philosophies and menial tasks/that too contribute to the beauty of this world.   24

You pick up/a clod to throw on the coffin lid but can’t/so turn away, dropping it in your pocket.   57

I say the final’s on Monday,/mostly short answer, some i.d.   28

each of us/off at a different floor: cardiology,/oncology, psychiatry, the burn unit,/the solarium.   43

In the hallways run a hundred children/in blue capes.   34

the assistant holding you down,/trying to fix you with sad, electric eyes/is John Keats.  65

how many times do you have to die/before you’re dead?   17

Oh unknowable/other, how I loved your smell.   35

how it smells like iron/then it rains and rains and rains.   71

It’s all right, I will say and my cat will cease/mewing beneath the earth.   45

Dearheart, already we’re air.   53

I won’t let the ice/on my face be wasted, won’t mistake/its melting for tears.   61

It will be like sleeping and/you won’t have to worry if you are really loved.   60

About this, even diamonds do not lie.   32

What I know about form couldn’t fill a thimble. What form knows about me will be my end.  30

but keep hammering because/hammering makes the world.   51

At least turn me over so I can see the sky.   63

I was drunk when I got here, I plan/on being drunk when I leave.   13

swearing/there will never be another like me, making sure.   15

31 Poems (1988-2008)

Collected and new works by Dean Young

72 pages, perfect-bound, soft cover. $12 (First Class postage-paid)

Of Dean Young’s work, it has been said:

“Bad by cosmic design…”

—Dan Chiasson, New York Times Book Review

“trash”

—William Logan, The New Criterion

“I would rather boil myself alive than read this man’s ‘work’ ever again.”

—Glint Masser, Amazon.com 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dean Young has published ten books of poetry, recently Elegy on Toy Piano, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Primitive Mentor. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, two from the National endowment for the Arts as well as an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught in the low-residency MFA program at Warren Wilson College and was on the permanent faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop until becoming the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. A book on poetics, The Art of Recklessness will be published in 2010. 

The Dark Is Here by Kiki Petrisino

from The Dark is Here

Advisory Protocol

Remember that it is not your responsibility to account for the severely troubled. You need only swallow enough needles & enough bread. The first disruption will resemble a silver collapse of the inner ear. Then it enters the room. In such cases, you must learn to hold yourself in a state of tonic immobility, letting your remaining teeth fall to the carpet. If you find yourself shrinking to the thinness of a soap leaf, if you perceive your tongue halting in its progress across the windowpane, you may have entered a rare or acute oscillation. Try to exit firmly & with respect. In this, mark your training. Mark that each of your hands is a perianth of light. Where you wanted to go can’t be reached by lipgloss anymore. Get up, get up. You’ll have to climb.

32 pages, soft cover,

stapled, w/inside artwork by Philip Miller

$5 (First Class postage paid)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kiki Petrosino is the author of the poetry collection, Fort Red Border (Sarabande, 2009). She teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Louisville.

Eric Appleby is Forklift, Ohio’s co-founder, Designer and Publisher. He earns a living as a computer whisperer, web designer and marketing hack for a regional wholesaler. His artwork is featured alongside poems by Charles Wright in the book Outtakes (Sarabande, 2010). For fun, he tap dances, collects vintage Waring Blendors, and plays in a variety of bands. He is also webmaster for H_NGM_N.

E-mail: publisher@forkliftohio.com

Matt Hart is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Forklift, Ohio and the author of the poetry collections Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless (Typecast Publishing, forthcoming), Light-Headed (BlazeVOX, 2011), Wolf Face (H_NGM_N Books, 2010), Who’s Who Vivid (Slope Editions 2006), and several chapbooks, including Simply Rocket (Lame House Press, 2007) and The Hours (Cinematheque Press, 2010). A collaborative chapbook, Late Makeup Years and Decline (1979-1983), with poet Dobby Gibson appeared in 2010 from Hell Yes! Press. A twenty year veteran of the alternative music scene, Hart’s music has appeared in major motion pictures and on MTV. Currently, he plays in the bands Squirtgun and Travel. He makes a killer Huevos Rancheros—believe it!

E-mail: editors@forkliftohio.com

Tricia Suit carries on a number of family traditions in her role as Managing Editor/Test Kitchen Director of Forklift, Ohio. In the 1930s-40s, her grandmother owned a westside Cincinnati diner; her father, a Marine, once had a job driving a forklift. She works as Marketing/Public Relations Manager for the Taft Museum of Art, sings for indie rock band 7 Speed Vortex, and spends her free time spoiling her dog, Olive. She invites you to send recipes, cooking/home economics tips, and mash notes to her at kitchen@forkliftohio.com 

Merrill Feitell is using her post as contributing editor to smuggle fiction writers into Forklift, Ohio. They may or may not be dangerous. They may or may not be recognized. Merrill’s first book, Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes, won the Iowa Award for Short Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

E-mail: fiction@forkliftohio.com

Amanda Smeltz holds an MFA in poetry from The New School. She is the author of Imperial Bender (Typecast Publishing, forthcoming) and her work appears in the anthology Why I Am Not a Painter, H_NGM_N, FAWLT Magazine, and La Fovea. She makes a living selling wine at a restaurant in Manhattan; her happy abode is in Brooklyn. If you make nice with her, she’ll probably cook you something delicious. 

E-mail: editors@forkliftohio.com 

Brett Price served as Poetry Editor of Forklift, Ohio for Issues #16 - #23. He now resides in Brooklyn and holds an MFA from Bard College. The author of Trouble With Mapping (Flying Guillotine, 2008), he curates the Friday Late Night Series for The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s.