Woodland Pattern |
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Book Center
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Small Press Focus: Ahsahta Press |
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September 16, 11am Discussion, 2pm Reading
Admission to the 11am program is free, and the 2pm reading is $8 gen. public, $7 students & seniors, $6 members
Janet Holmes will lead a conversation on the role of small press and the daily business of a small press publishing. We'll discuss Ahsahta's history as an all-poetry literary press that prides itself on publishing books that value artistry as well as craft, and the mind as well as the heart.
The 2pm reading features three representatives of Ahsahta's output: Kate Greenstreet, Lisa Fishman, and editor Holmes.
Ahsahta Press, a not-for-profit literary publisher, was founded at Boise State University to preserve the best works by early poets of the American West, including many underpublished women poets. Peggy Pond Church, H.L. Davis, Hazel Hall, Gwendolen Haste, Haniel Long, and Norman MacLeod are among the early Western writers Ahsahta Press has restored to print. In 1978, press founder Tom Trusky edited a collection of Women Poets of the West offering a generous selection of the work of early Western women poets that remains a popular title.

Soon after its inception, the press began publishing contemporary poetry by Western poets along with its reprint titles. Ahsahta editors discovered and initially published a number of widely popular poets from the Westamong them David Baker, Katharine Coles, Wyn Cooper, Gretel Ehrlich, Cynthia Hogue, Leo Romero, and Carolyne Wright. In recent years Ahsahta Press has expanded its scope, presenting the work of poets from across the nation. Ahsahta Press seeks out and publishes the best new poetry from an eclectic range of aesthetics-poetry that is technically accomplished, distinctive in style, and thematically fresh.
The name Ahsahta is a Mandan word meaning "Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep," and was first recorded by members of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Recently published Ahsahta titles available at Woodland Pattern include:
Fishman, Lisa, The Happiness Experiment
Briante, Susan, Pioneers in the Study of Motion
Greenstreet, Kate, case sensitive
Gordon, Noah Eli, The Area of Sound Called the Subtone
Beachy-Quick, Dan, Spell
Foust, Graham, Leave the Room to Itself
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