Books published by Plain View Press, LLC

My grandmother’s samovar has been an abiding presence in my life. Carried to the United States as she and my great-grandparents escaped the Russian pogroms, it is a reminder of their determination to resist the forces that seek to destroy the human spirit, their courage in leaving behind all they had known. In losing their home, they made it possible for my parents and me to find ours. I have written these poems to tell my children what the samovar has told me: We cannot separate what we’ve lost from what remains. It is together that they take us home. ——— Marcia Katz Wolf’s fourth collection of poetry, Under the Sign of the Samovar, is a field of thought, a memoir, and a casual bedazzlement. Existing at the intersection of the personal and metaphysical, its distinctive vision finds unity among things diverse and present. Her aunt takes her after Sabbath School to the Emerald City of Woolworth’s to buy moddess. A chimp is taught sign language. Her mother rhapsodizes in her bath about the Russian Revolution and her hero Trotsky. Dresden and other horrors are entered into a theory of suffering, a baffling calculus, that can leave you, as it did me, at the brink. In the final poem, her husband Irving, a figure of gentle healing in this book, brings her tea. The simmering of the samovar must always have been there, a sturdy elegance, a place where a poet, a Marcia Katz Wolf, had no choice but to be a poet.—Charles Nauman, author of How It Goes Jumping Whether riffing on Gogol’s “Overcoat,” watching her little granddaughter tricycle down a suburban street, or meditating on questions of truth, identity, memory, grace, or aging, Marcia Katz Wolf takes us to the mystifying center of our human experience. Alternately wry and joyous, humorous and heartbreaking, her poems probe the mysteries and wonders of our lives. Wolf’s uncompromising diction, exquisite phrasing, and startling juxtapositions that find us chuckling and then thrust a knife into our hearts cast a lyrical spell that leaves the reader yearning for more. —Constance Solari, author of Sophie’s Fire

"...this new world fraught with enormous new challenges weighted down with inherited old world problems, needs new navigational tools, new tongues unafraid of truth, and new poets with hearts and words almost too big for the treasure chests they beat in. You can find all of that and a hint of raw sugarcane in these pages." Frank X Walker, Editor of PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture; Author of Affrilachia, When Winter Come, Black Box and more. "In Of Jíbaros and Hillbillies, Ricardo Nazario y Colón connects the dots between Puerto Rico and Affrilachia, creating a route that is poetic narrative, grito, reflection and canción. The writing is muscular, intimately masculine, yet able to fully embrace a female essence-in poems that reference the Great Mother or in intimate connection with a woman the poet desires. The present legacy of racism, sexism, eco-exploitation, and colonialism, of psychic damage suffered in war-all are articulated here. In a favorite piece, Nazario y Colón crafts an ode/psalm to his spirit brother, Frank X Walker, where the ties that connect are lovingly etched." Lisa Alvarado, Author of Raw Silk Suture and Sister Chicas "Fierce and must read it slowly."   Rane Arroyo, Poet, recent titles include:  The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems,  and The Sky's Weight

Praise for Barbara de la Cuesta's previous novel, The Spanish Teacher, winner of the Gival Press Novel Prize... "The Spanish Teacher has everything to thrill you-pace, a great balance of description, gesture and action, charmed, perfectly tuned dialogue, and most notably, a character we follow as closely and sympathetically as if we were living right there inside the story with him…rarely do we see a full drama like this, where every bit of the writing extends from, grows out of, is part and parcel with the author's complete realization of and connection to her character…" -Don Berger, judge for the Gival Press Novel Award "…de la Cuesta's novel maintains an accumulating power which holds the reader's attention not only through the forceful figure of Ordóñez, but by demonstrating acutely how ordinary lives are impacted by the underlying social and political landscape. Compelling reading." -Tom Tolnay, author of Selling America and This Is the Forest Primeval