We Make Shapes From Shapes

Poetry by Lee Kathryn Hodge

Inspired by the writing of author Linda Hogan and written contemplating the loss of three friends by suicide. This collection is composed of two heroic sonnet crown sequences, each formed by fourteen interlocking sonnets bound together through line repetition and concluding with a final master sonnet.

First place winner in the 2024 WFOP Chapbook contest!

The Ring Toss Lady Breaks a Five

Poetry by Mark Kraushaar

Mark Kraushaar’s work has been included in Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, and Yale Review as well as the web site Poetry Daily and Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, and has been a recipient of Poetry Northwest’s Richard Hugo Award. A full-length collection Falling Brick Kills Local Man was published by University of Wisconsin Press as the winner of the 2009 Felix Pollak Prize. His collection, The Uncertainty Principle (Waywiser Press), was chosen by James Fenton as winner of the Anthony Hecht Prize.

The Shoeshiner's Rag Pops and Sings: Poems New and Old and In Between

by Richard Swanson

Long a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, Swanson exemplifies the mission of that organization: dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of poets and poetic heritage in the state. This collection gathers poems from 5 of his previous books as well as a large section of previously unpublished poems about his time spent in Mexico with his longtime partner. These 21 poems detail the sunshine as well as the dark corners of Mexico, but always written with Swanson’s wit, charm and humanity.

100 Umbrellas

by Ron Czerwien

Tangentially inspired by the Dada artist Erik Satie, these poems are at once serious critiques of culture and absurdist and funny frolics through the English language.

Madison Poet Laureate Angie Trudell Vasquez interviewed Ron Czerwien about 100 Umbrellas for the Madison radio station WORT.

Cutting the Dusk in Half

Poetry by Thomas J. Erickson

“Cutting the Dusk in Half” is full of crisp little stories: courtroom stories, travelling stories, love stories, dog stories and even an incantation to the Gods. One is called “True Stories,” but I suspect they all are that (with room for a little poetic truth stretching, of course). Erickson is candid, philosophical and down-to-earth. He weaves his signature dry humor throughout, knowing exactly how to end a poem with a perfect punch. The collection starts with National Emergency where he writes, “Besides, why would you want to shake hands with me? / You don’t even know me.” At that point, you’re in for a treat and by the end, you will want to shake his hand over and again.

Everything about Breathing

Poetry by B.J. Best

2nd place winner in the 2019 WFOP Chapbook Contest!

In Everything about Breathing author B.J. Best writes about simple things: snow boots, a rain gauge, an anemometer, clouds, lawnmowers. There is sadness and humor (sometimes together) and more good lines than most poets write in a good long lifetime.

A little rain, a little more

Poetry by Ron Czerwien

Czerwien writes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Snowflakes, owls, fathers, loves, premonitions; familiar but new. These poems surprise. They are conversations with friends you always knew you had but never knew you had. Poems of close attention; poems from that place poets go and bring back something entirely their own. Pull up your wing chair, sit awhile at this window on the world.

“This is a wonderful new chapbook, ...full of feeling and elegy, language and play!”

—Robin Chapman-poet, artist and Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences.

“[This] book is graceful, sad, strange and beautiful. Attending as carefully to things of language as to the observed world, the acuity of these poems is matched by their formal economy. Everything’s essential.”

—Andy Gricevich-musician, performer, poet and editor of cannot exist.

Canoeing a River with No Name

Poetry by Ronnie Hess

Winner of the 2018 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Chapbook Prize!

Follow poet Hess on this riverine journey of thoughtful, nuanced poems. Hess' unique voice can come across as almost matter-of-fact, yet  there are depths to her poetry that belie this seemingly straightforward tone. Rocks and rapids lie just underneath the gentle current and surprises wait around the next bend.

Sensorium

Poetry by Richard Merelman.

Merelman finds a way into the human condition with storied, deeply layered poetry. Merelman cares about his poems the way an expert woodsmith does his cabinets. He is an adept wordsmith and exquisite craftsman and polishes his works til they shine.

Dove Tail

Art and Poetry by Sharon Auberle and Jeanie Tomasko

Winner of the 2017 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Chapbook Prize!

Another poetry / artwork Collaboration between Jeanie & Sharon Auberle. The two exchanged drawings and then wrote poems to each other's art. A superb collaboration of both visual art and poetry!