Books published by Stubborn Mule Press

"Wide ranging, thoughtful, intelligent, at times elegiac, surreal, and humorous, Chase Dimock''s Sentinel Species is a collection of poems that, as its title suggests, watches over the varied life forms on our planet, from animals and plants to humans. At the heart of Dimock''s project is compassion towards all beings, especially those on the fringes of society and culture. In excavating the stories of the under-represented or the forgotten, Dimock gives them voice and thus dignity. This is a beautiful, at times painful, but always inclusive, generous, and tender book." - Bunkong Tuon, poet and associate professor of English, Union College "Chase Dimock''s Sentinel Species is bursting with life. The animals, insects, and plants that populate these poems--alive or dead, thriving or in decline--provide startling gateways into explorations of human existence. Dimock''s poems examine memory, culture, and the fundamental yearning that comes with being alive through a joyously dizzy array of extended metaphors and associations. These are poems that speak to the fundamental dignity of the living, and celebrate the emotional and intellectual flora and fauna of the everyday."  -James Brubaker, author of The Taxidermist''s                       Catalog and Black Magic Death                                                         Sphere: (science) fictions.∩╗┐"Honest, clear sighted, and masterfully written, this is a beautiful and important book which gives voice to the creatures that we love and may lose. Chase''s remarkable knowledge of endangered species is coupled with a charm, wit and inventiveness which makes this a delightful read and one which engenders empathy by showing what we share withthe animal world, not least in the shape of Koko the Gorilla who asks god why she was given knuckles that drag the ground and a mind that questions the sky.-Anna Saunders, CEO Cheltenham Poetry Festval                          and author of six collections                        including Ghosting for Beginners                            ( Indigo Dreams ).

Four femme poets are featured in the first Stubborn Mule Press anthology: Dianne Borsenik, Juliet Cook, Puma Perl, and Jeanette Powers. Dianne Borsenik is active in the northern Ohio poetry scene and regional reading circuit; she recently featured in "We're No Angels" (Speak of the Devil, Lorain, Ohio) and "2 Chefs & a Beat: Poetic Justice Edition" (Porco Lounge and Tiki Room, Cleveland, Ohio). Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Resurrection River Poems (Wick Poetry Center, 2019) and A Rustling and Waking Within (Ohio Poetry Association, 2017); recent books include Raga for What Comes Next (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), and Age of Aquarius (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017). Actor Jonathan Frid used three of her poems in his live show Genesis of Evil, and Lit Youngstown printed her poem "Disco" on their tee shirts, which makes her feel like a rock star. Borsenik is editor/publisher at NightBallet Press, and lives in Elyria, Ohio. Find her on Facebook and at www.dianneborsenik.com. Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of magazines. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, recently including From One Ruined Human to Another (Cringe-Worthy Poets Collective, 2018), DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises) (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 9, 2019), and Another Set of Ripped-Out Bloody Pigtails (The Poet's Haven, 2019). She also another chapbook forthcoming, the rabbits with red eyes (forthcoming from ethel). Cook's first full-length individual poetry book, Horrific Confection was published by BlazeVOX. Her more recent full-length poetry book, A Red Witch, Every Which Way, was a collaboration with j/j hastain published by Hysterical Books in 2016. Her most recent full-length individual poetry book, Malformed Confetti was published by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2018. Cook also sometimes creates abstract painting collage art hybrid creatures. Find out more at julietcook.weebly.com Puma Perl is a widely published poet and writer, as well as a performer and producer. She is the author of two chapbooks, Ruby True and Belinda and Her Friends, and two full-length poetry collections, knuckle tattoos, and Retrograde, (great weather for MEDIA.) A fifth, Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque) is due for release in 2019. She is the creator, curator, and producer of Puma Perl's Pandemonium, which launched at the Bowery Electric in 2012 and brings spoken word together with rock and roll. As Puma Perl and Friends, she performs regularly with a group of excellent musicians. She's received two honorable mentions and one first place award from the New York Press Association in recognition of her journalism and was the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing; she lives and works on the Lower East.A comprehensive list of video links and updates on events can be found on her blog: pumaperl.blogspot.com Jeanette Powers is a writer-artist, working-class anarchist and listener of rivers and bats. They mess around, mostly, and have a hard time doing anything that doesn't bring joy. Powers is a founding editor of Stubborn Mule Press and an organizer for FountainVerse: KC Small Press Poetry Fest. They are also an art barista for Fictional Cafe and the singular subversive voice of Spartan Press' developmental editing. JP and JR make most of their decisions tits deep in the Gasconade River. What else? Their gender identity is currently holy person and their dog died this year which still hurts brutally. This book is for Ollymas. @dada_ahha and jeanettepowers.com

These are poems of love and all its problems, the joy of makeup after the horror of breakup, the self abuse, loyalty and the big question of what does love look like. This is an unflinching look into a queer relationship, vulnerable and brave.

"Stolte shows us his favorite parts of hell with calm enthusiasm. His love affair with perdition cools with distance from the inferno, but still proves eternal. There is humor and humility in this complex (but not convoluted) collection of street-kid war stories and dope sick love letters. It reads like a lullaby for the damned." -Ezhno Martín, founding editor EMP Books "Nathanael William Stolte always has room for you in his heart. It's warm and metaphysical in there, so be sure to bring your slippers and a flask. Stolte is the everyday-man's man, writing of a simple and humble life. He is often brave enough to call people out on their shit (including his own), writing, "Being wrong is a universal human condition." His short pieces land like grenades and his longer pieces spin tales of the intricacies of aging, the nature of perspective, and lessons necessary for becoming a better person. Wherever Stolte may be, I am confident that he is experiencing and writing about that place in its most beautifully authentic form. Like the city, this collection is dirty and tough, mysterious and sentimental. Stolte characterizes his collection well when he writes, "It's cold / my feet are wet & / I wouldn't change a thing." " -Linzi Garcia, author of Thank You "Some poets are born of the fire that makes the world in all of its beautiful doom, Stolte is one of those poets - let him sing." -RA Washington, author of BLACK Eunuch

This full-color poetry book by Rebecca Schumejda features a single long-form poem about the incarceration of her brother and its rippling effects across their family. Includes artworks by Hosho McCreesh."How do you forgive the unforgivable? This is the question Rebecca Schumejda wrestles with, on a grand scale, in this emotionally taut, tightly structured, intensely personal poem. Using a slow reveal, the poet dispenses morsels of information, with regard to the nature of the crime, and her struggles with coping with her love for her brother who committed it and, finally, the heinous nature of what he did, until we learn, as well, what happened. She asks, among the many effective refrains, "What if you had died that night?" Somehow life could have been easier if he had. Maybe. I know how she feels. I've been there: different relative, similar crime. Something Like Forgiveness is not simply a must read, it is an experience." -Alan Catlin, poet, editor Misfit Magazinebios: Rebecca Schumejda is the author of several full-length ollections including Falling Forward (sunnyoutside press), Cadillac Men (NYQ Books), Waiting at the Dead End Diner (Bottom Dog Press) and most recently Our One-Way Street (NYQ Books). She is the co-editor at Trailer Park Quarterly. She received her MA in Poetics from San Francisco State University and her BA from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her family. You can find her online at: rebecca-schumejda.comHosho McCreesh is currently writing, painting, and making stuff in the gypsum & caliche badlands of the American Southwest. His work has appeared widely in print, audio, & online. He can be found at www.hoshomccreesh.com

Erica Hoffmeister's Lived in Bars is an exquisite road trip across America's still-feral landscapes and people. The poems are a woman's experience in lostness and finding: brutal and benevolent, in crisis and of tremendous grit. "There were certain things you lived with, and certain things you lived without." Perhaps this taut line best describes the push/pull and lived duality that Erica Hoffmeister writes about in Lived In Bars. There is an urgency to understand the past, home, and lives like that straddle the line of the academic and the tender of the bar, the patron and the daughter, the lover and the one who stands firmly and demands to be loved here, now, in this haze of smoke and with this traveling past. What I mean is Hoffmeister is standing at the edge of the poetic form, at the edge of past and future, at the red rocks in Utah and the wet trees by the ocean in Charleston, begging us to look closer at our seedy underbellies, our histories as they are, our drunken arms open on the road without denial, without shame, with sound and sense and the poetry in everything. - Tara Shea Burke, author of Animal Like Any Other (Finishing Line Press, 2019)bio: Erica Hoffmeister grew up in Southern California, but has been chasing that elusive concept of home since she witnessed the vast, east Texan sky bloom on her very first cross-country road trip at the age of seven. She is the author of the prize-winning chapbook Roots Grew Wild (Kingdoms in the Wild, 2019), holds an MFA from Chapman University, and teaches college English. She writes in a variety of genres, from poetry to creative non-fiction, flash and even young adult fiction, and has been published in several journals and magazines. She has received an honorable mention for the Lorian Hemingway Award for Short Fiction (2014), was named a runner-up for the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize (2016), and has been nominated for Best of the Net. For now, she resides in Denver with her husband and two young daughters and perpetually misses home - wherever that feels like at the time. You can learn more about her and her work at www.ericarhoffmeister.com.

Jason Preu's poem, To Grow a Hole the Size of Everything, is hand-written and illustrated in this full-color, completely unique book. Jeanette Powers' artworks are layered and complex dada explorations in form and feeling.The poem is revealed over 108 hand written and drawn pages through multimedia visuals: pencil, pen, marker, gouache, watercolor, embers, and collage. The orginal art was created as a stand alone, one of a kind art book on a hand-made, banana paper sketchbook and is reproduced here as close to its orginal form as possible.

The notorious beat poet, Catfish McDaris, returns with this epic book of too-good-to-be-true chronicles. Titillating, controversial, antagonistic and endearingly personal, these poems and short fiction pieces travel a wide gamut of human experience. For better or for worse, McDaris is rightfully held alongside such beats as Bukowski and Ginsberg.

Poet Margaret Bazzell-Crocker brings a knockout collection of work with "When I Was a Girl Like Me," the book explores the world of family and motherhood and femininity with a sledgehammer and a sickle. This collection is raw with anger and power while being so honest and maintaining hope throughout.

Dog Alley is a hybrid, full-color book of poems and paintings by the renowned artist Hugh Merrill. The poems are an intimate look at memory, aging, loss, privilege and sexuality all wrapped up in the potent and visceral language of emotion that only Merrill can achieve.