Smalls Books

Smalls Books (Click Titles to Buy)

2011-11-10T09:15:00.000-08:00

Here's what we've done so far. And watch for two new volumes in early 2012: Token Entry: Poems of the New York Subway and Steampunk: poems, by Gerry LaFemina.

Why Pat Cooks: poems
by Lee Kostrinsky

New York and Other Lovers: poems
by George Guida

*SMALLS 2009 POETRY BOOK CONTEST WINNER*
Breath into Bone: poems
J. R. Thelin

The Sleeping with Series: poems
Christine Timm

SMALLS BOOKS UPDATE

2011-09-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Smalls Books will return to action in 2012, with the publication of Token Entry: Poems of the New York Subway and Steampunk, a chapbook by Gerry LaFemina.

Publisher Lee Kostrinsky is in the process of relocating the press to Brooklyn, and plans to make Smalls THE small press for poetry focused on America's cities.

Stay tuned.

COMING FROM SMALLS BOOKS IN 2011

2010-12-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

Token Entry:
Poems of the New York City Subway

This landmark anthology collects 100 years of poetry by famous and fabulous poets, about one of the world's great transit systems and muses.

Steampunk: Poems

by Gerry LaFemina

Winner of the Bordighera Poetry Prize, author of The Window Facing Winter (New Issues), The Big Book of Clown Baby (Mayapple), and Wish List (Marick).

New Smalls Books Publications, Fall 2010

2010-11-08T07:56:00.001-08:00

New Titles from Smalls Books

Fall 2010

*SMALLS 2009 POETRY BOOK CONTEST WINNER*

Breath into Bone: Poems

J. R. Thelin

"Breath Into Bone is that savviest of books: a coming of age tale that finds its most personal articulations in the public record, in this case, the recent history of popular music. Here we have the legendary alongside the lost, the famous and the has-beens. These poems are wraced with the spendor of power chords and bad haircuts, rim shots and groupies. It's all here: hilarious and devastating and completely authentic. Thelin's poems are his "funny valentine" to a past steeped in the excess of playing and paying attention to the music that matters: jazz, pop, rock and roll and polka. Well, maybe not polka. Breath Into Bone lifts us above the wreckage of lives lost and abandoned, of a past lived gig to gig, of all that we loved well and let go."

--James Harms, author of The Joy Addict and After West

"John Thelin’s sophisticated and lively book reminds us why poetry and music are as necessary as breathing. Taking us from adolescence through adulthood, our narrator weaves his stories with the soundtrack of a Generation always front and center. There are poems here of celebration and loss, a longing to find something like love, playing one perfect note. Poems as brash as the Sex Pistols, hopeful as a garage band or a lone drummer in the basement. Breath Into Bone is one hell of a book of poems, and John Thelin is one hell of a poet."

--Tim Suermondt

The Sleeping with Series: Poems

Christine Timm

"Quiet down, kids, Professor Timm's class is now in session. Here in Poetry for the People 101, you'll learn all the important stuff about the field of verse--the inner lives of the poets, their peccadilloes and trances....Here at last is a fresh voice and a learned one, a dancer with words, a soul voice."

--Bob Holman, Producer of "The United States of Poetry"

Excerpts from Smalls Books books

2008-05-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

Heartfelt Imposter

I used to have the coolest dark blue mechanic shirt
From a thrift store that died into a ﬂorist on believe it or not
Main Street
It had “Mr. Valentine” in script, over the front pocket
and I wore it out
and girls would ask
‘And are you Mr. Valentine?’
And I’d say no, do you know him?
and they’d laugh, ‘no why?’
I am a just a fake mechanic then
with a blue valentine lie
dressed in lovely used rags . . .
honest

--Lee Kostrinsky, from WHY PAT COOKS

from "At Last"

I don’t know about her life
on the verge of surrender
to a young bed
or old easy chair.

Porgy and Bess-like in Brooklyn,
she stops me dead on the street,
takes my hand to ask,
What are we doing?

I don’t know.

I consult the runes of Etta James,
in love with a married man
when she sang,
my lonely days are over
and life is just
a poem, shorter than it seems,
her melody, a spogliarello,
a strip tease baring the bloody heart

--George Guida, from NEW YORK AND OTHER LOVERS

Creative Commons Attribution Statement

2008-05-02T12:36:00.001-07:00

"Creative Commons License"
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Smalls Books Exists

2008-05-02T08:20:00.001-07:00

To the world.

Smalls Books is operational. We publish poetry and prose, much but not all of which will have a New York focus. But don't let that focus limit you. We will be publishing great books with all kinds of subject matter. If you have such a book in manuscript, consider polishing and sending it to us. We read all year long, and will be putting out calls for our upcoming book contest and several planned anthologies.

In the meantime, check out our first two titles, available shortly through most on-line book outlets, including Amazon and BarnesandNoble.

WHY PAT COOKS: Poems, by Lee Kostrinsky (ISBN 10: 0-9801916-0-2, ISBN 13: 978-0-9801916-0-8)

NEW YORK AND OTHER LOVERS: Poems, by George Guida (ISBN 10: 0-9801916-1-0, ISBN 13: 978-0-9801916-1-5)