Flesh in the Inkwell - Winona Baker (Leaf Press)

The poems of Flesh in the Inkwell detail what it was like for a child growing up in the ‘29 depression. How sometimes when poverty enters the door, love flies out the window.

Winona Baker’s fascination with words and writing started very early: “On the farm we all went to the crossroads where every two weeks everyone gathered early to gossip, even the children. We waited for a van with drop-down sides to pull up. Stacked behind them was a selection of books. Heavenly! We could take two out every two weeks. It doesn’t sound like many for a budding bibliophile but in a big family that was quite a number. No TV then, but we had a radio, if the batteries weren’t dead.”

Winona Baker published her first poem when she was eleven years old. During a writing career that has spanned a lifetime, her poems have been published all over the world and translated into six languages; she has also received many international honours and awards. Flesh in the Inkwell is her autobiography in verse.

Winona Baker’s work is in more than seventy anthologies worldwide, and has been translated into Japanese, French, Greek, Croatian, Romanian, Yugoslavian. Her work is archived in the Haiku Museum, Tokyo; the Basho Museum, Yamagata; the American Haiku Archives in California, and the Haiku Collection in the Fraser-Hickson Library Montreal. Her other books include Beyond the Lighthouse (Oolichan, 1992) and Even a Stone Breathes (Oolichan, 2000).

About Leaf Press
Leaf Press is an independent poetry publisher located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Other titles include: Huge Blue by Patrick M. Pilarski, Obituary of Light: the Sangan River Meditations by Susan Musgrave, and Precipitous Signs: a Rain Journal by Leanne Boschman.

Winona Baker: Flesh in the Inkwell
poetry
112 pages, $18.00
978-1-926655-09-3

Odes to Tools - Dave Bonta (Phoenicia Publishing)

Odes to Tools is a collection of 25 poems inspired by common hand tools, from the socket wrench and shovel to scissors and forks. At the same time down-to-earth and philosophical, the author says that in these poems he was asking, "what if we actually were tools? Doesn't a favorite tool often become more than just an instrument of the worker's will? Doesn't every successful tool in fact acquire a bit of an aura, sometimes even a personality? How well do any of us know the tools we take for granted?"

Dave Bonta, well-known to many readers as one of the co-editors of qarrtsiluni online literary magazine and author of the blog Via Negativa, was born in 1966, which makes him just three years older than the Internet. Though he lives on a remote mountainside in rural Pennsylvania, Dave says he's "not nearly as handy" as these poems might suggest, and that his favorite tool is actually the computer mouse.

About Phoenicia Publishing
Phoenicia Publishing, located in Montreal, publishes poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and photography, and is interested in "words and images that illuminate culture, spirit, and the human experience." The press's founder, Elizabeth Adams, says that a particular interest is on writing about travel between cultures — whether literally or more metaphorically — with the goal of enlarging our understanding of one another through experiences of change, displacement, disconnection, assimilation, sorrow, gratitude, longing and hope.

Dave Bonta: Odes to Tools
poetry chapbook,
32 pages with full color cover, $6.95
ISBN 978-0-9781749-9-6

Unheralded Artists of BC #2 (Mother Tongue)

The Unheralded Artists of BC is a beautiful, lively and well-written series dedicated to introducing many forgotten 20th-century Canadian British Columbia artists to the people while recognizing their artistic significance.

Filled with rare art reproductions and artists’ personal photographs, this 2nd book in the series - Life & Art of Frank Molnar, Jack Hardman & LeRoy Jensen - introduces the talent of three BC artist-mentors who worked and exhibited from the 1950s on in Vancouver, Burnaby, Victoria and Salt Spring Island, yet are known only to a few. Their common bond was their choice not to embrace, chameleon-like, the various artistic trends of the era, but to work passionately towards perfecting their own ‘timeless and individuated styles’. This book honours their important contribution to the BC art scene and tells the untold stories.

About Mother Tongue Publishing
Formerly Mother Tongue Press, Mother Tongue Publishing concentrates on publishing unique, bold and stimulating books of British Columbia art history, fine art and literature. Recent publications include Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary B.C. Poetry, edited by Mona Fertig & Harold Rhenisch, and 4 Poets - this new BC poets series features emerging and established BC poets in a fresh format that explores the broader scope of the poet’s work. The first issue included poets Elza, Morin, Rempel & Yawnghwe.

The Life & Art of Frank Molnar, Jack Hardman & LeRoy Jensen
144 pages CDN $34.95
Trade paperback with French flaps
95 colour and b&w plates