Books published by Spartan Press

"I once included Harley Elliott in a group I referred to as "Poets of the 6th Principle Meridian" (the north-south line used as a base for the Public Land Survey System that laid out the hatch-work of green and brown quadrangles we see as we fly over heartland America). He has lived for many years within a stone''s throw of that meridian and his poems often speak as straight as a section-line road about the beating hearts of prairie denizens. The forms of the poems on the pages of Creature Way put me in mind of that characterization; short line lengths make the poems on their pages into graphic depictions of prairie perspectives; apparently simple words put together in what appear to be simple ways are revealed by attentive reading to express insightful truths as inter- twined and intense as the tillering subsurface webs that sustain prairie grasses through drought and fire and flood. You owe yourself this conversation with Harley Elliott."-Roy Beckemeyer, Author of Mouth Brimming           Over (Blue Cedar Press, 2019)"Few poets can meditate on a prairie scene (or any scene) with Harley''s wicked, intelligent wit. For instance, when climbing through a barbwire fence following a lovely woman, Harley writes, "If she turns and / parts the wires for you / call the preacher." That''s all Harley: voice and smarts and humility and romance, all at once."-Kevin Rabas (Poet Laureate of Kansas, 2017-         2019), All That Jazz∩╗┐"Harley Elliott is a homespun philosopher with a gifted earand the heart of a laughing scavenger."-Steven Hind"Harley Elliott is the poet who made me want to be a poet. His new book of revelations, Creature Way, continues to interrogate the relationship between humans and other living beings--including stones. The poem "Turquoise" asserts, Some say it looks like sky. / Some say it is sky." Artifice collapses. This is an essential book about the cosmos from the poet who changed my life. "-Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate

"Like the Ginsberg he quotes as an epigraph, the energy here is loose, long-limbed and anachronistic. The poems move like dreams and myths, their recurring themes and actions subtly linking them into a satisfying whole. And then just when you think you know where you are, the poems veer - L''Ecuyer has a facility with any and all styles, and a love of chance, and something else that almost always gets forgotten these days: a love of fun. Reading these poems is a pleasure. Imagine that!"-Matthew Rohrer

Each poem in Carmel Morse''s debut collection, Bloodroot, opens fully in the sun of memory. And just like the plant from which the book takes its name, each poem blooms with paradox: delicate and enduring; simply designed yet emotionally complex. Even though ghosts of grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, aunts, and sisters travel through dreams and darkness when the flowers close, and even though "I am a woman in an inkwell, drowning / because she did not answer me," Bloodroot pulls down strength from the sun and sinks it into its juiced-red roots. Morse doesn''t obscure the shimmering details of pain, but names and wonders and challenges. In doing so, this sharp poet transforms memories of abuse and regret into art.-- Christine Stewart-Nu├▒ez, South Dakota Poet Laureate and author of Bluewords Greening (Terrapin Books, 2016)ε£ÆIn Bloodroot, Carmel Morse''s poems capture the experiences and the people that have shaped her life. The poems are made of concrete words and images. They also have a deeper level that captures the emotional and spiritual depth at the root of the experiences. The first poem, "Onyx," is charged with striking images and it tells a story. The father rejects his child because it is a girl; however, he gives the narrator a beautiful necklace. Sixteen years later, when she prepares to deliver her second child, the father cannot accept that the baby is a girl. He leaves no gift and two years later he leaves for good. The narrator''s life is so hard she almost sells the necklace, but she cannot. In order to remain strong, she "would unwrap the necklace/from the tissue paper/and fondle the stone." Here is Eliot''s Objective Correlative written with striking force, forging the experience in the reader''s mind. - Gary Pacernick, author of Memory and Fire: Ten American Jewish Poets (Peter Lang, 1989) Bloodroot, an apt title for this collection, delves deep through family and personal history to explore what is has meant, and continues to mean, to be an independent woman in America, even though "jagged threads shriveled/into cables of dried blood/and snapped off at the roots years ago."  Carmel Morse''s poems seek out "staples that attempt/to gather my...loose ends" and in so doing, she provides a full pantry.  She exposes how American culture has held women "to a tent/of beauty as surface perfection", delving beneath that surface to find both flaws and inner beauty.  Ultimately, this collection pays tribute to the human capacity, despite torment and tragedy, to survive and to nourish its bloodline and dance the Charleston at a granddaughter''s birthday party. - Will Wells, author of Unsettled Accounts (Ohio University Press, 2010) 

Hugh Merrill, internationally renowned printmaker and forerunner in the social practice art movement, writes this memoir focused on his formative years where he grew up in a high-profile, politically connected, wealthy white family in the deep Jim Crow South.

Hugh Merrill, internationally renowned printmaker and forerunner in the social practice art movement, writes and illustrates in full-color this memoir focused on his formative years where he grew up in a high-profile, politically connected, wealthy white family in the deep Jim Crow South.

James Benger and Tyler Robert Sheldon team up for this split investigating the power of life on the road, with the focus of high beams on country roads and the squealing tires of sudden veering, these poems will take you for a ride you won't want to end. Gritty, potent and earnest, these two poets work together to create a wrenching tale.