Cirque Press

09/04/2024

Karen Tschannen leaves AK for TX on Saturday. This week, we've been celebrating her poetry and our abiding friendship. We'll share comments with her when she visits this week.

08/31/2024

Introduction at the launch of
Apportioning the Light by Karen Tschannen
Sandra Kleven of Cirque Press
On Karen… When I review the process of arriving here, early steps are vague. We met in the summer of 2016 when Karen’s friend, former laureate, Joanne Townsend, came to Anchorage from Los Cruces, New Mexico and read as the Poetry Parley featured poet.
They were once three – Joanne, Nancy Cleery and Karen. Three graces – friends who supported each other’s writing in the tradition of Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin. In the tradition of many kitchen table poets.
This period in our history - the seventies and earlier - was a time when the poetry of woman was trivialized as “kitchen poetry” and a woman had to fight this perception even to take herself seriously.
Karen took UAA classes with Tom Sexton and Nancy Cleery. A prose/poem piece titled “Wednesday Lover” was published in the first issue of AQR. That would be the mid 80’s. This would be considered quite the accomplishment. Thirty-five years later AQR is the hardest nut to crack.
Somehow through my acquaintance with Karen I gathered the fact that she had enough material at hand to read as the featured local poet for Poetry Parley. This is all vague up until about two years ago in the geographical footprint formed right here… back when we occupied the Adults Only shop and I heard Karen read her verse for the first time… “Where is that woman walking past going? I’ve seen her before…”
Soon, I would ask “Do you think you have enough poetry for a book?” And for 14 months we worked to make this happen. Michael Burwell edited. Paxson Woelber worked on design and Kat Anderson providing the cover. There was no Cirque Press. But I proposed this to Michael “For nine years, we’ve created two books a year.” Referencing Cirque. We know how to make a book. Let’s publish Karen’s collected poetry.”
~~~
Now, there are no words because we have captured them all here… in poems with such memorable phrasing as “ankle deep in stars.” “stiff night of winter,” “praised god in horizontal harmonies,“ “bulbs like infant fists insisting on the light, lobed memories listening intently..” and “Where is that woman Walking Past Going, I’ve seen her before going alone.”
Karen says, collected poems are like an offering. We bring them together and secure them, offer them. Collected and published in a book, she will be remembered for what she has accomplished. These words will not be lost. Karen writes, “Once for a little time, someone heard my words, words reckless and inexhaustible, words powerful as love. “
Karen Tschannen – one of Alaska’s great poets.
Now I would like to introduce the one to whom the book is dedicated, Annaleisa Tschannen, Karen’s daughter.

08/29/2024

Karen Tschannen says, 4/3/2018
Thank you so much for the pix and your kind words...for me and for poetry here in Alaska. It is so alive these days. I do remember those days so many years back when having ten attend a reading at The Bread Factory was a "crowd." Now there is hardly enough parking at some of the many venues here in Anchorage. New publications, new fresh words at readings, handsome broadsides in food venues. Lots of excitement. Lots of poetry postings on my Facebook feed. Feeling the VIBES! and YOU (Vivian Faith Prescott) add a lot to that all the way in and from SE Alaska! Thank You! and Sandra Kleven and Mike Burwell at Cirque, 49 writers, and so many many others, providing the energy and thoughtfulness and words words words! Poetry, alive and well in Alaska.

08/24/2024

Marion Elliott, author of Out Of The Dark: A Memoir, just shared this wonderful review posted to Amazon by “Holly.” Thank you.

“I found this third-person memoir hard to put down, because there was no logical place to pause. I wanted to keep learning more about her loss, and about her journey (including a literal journey, the ultimate road trip from New York to Alaska). Her lyrical writing is so descriptive I was almost experiencing the grief of losing a son as she did, and I also learned a lot about how grief can affect a person. If this sounds like a sad book, well portions of it are. But there is joy to be found here too, and wonderful stories of the folks she meets on her road trip and in Alaska. I recommend you pick up a copy to follow along on the journey.”

08/02/2024

This is happening in Bothell, WA, in just a few weeks. We've got three writers traveling from Oregon, one from Idaho, Cynthia from AK, and this trip I'll be heading to the Northwest from Barcelona where instead of frolicking's in the nearby waves, I am promoting this reading! So be there. I have sacrificed for this!
By way of compensation in one hour I will head out on to Montserrat and ascension via a cog-wheel train.
Note that we'll also be celebrating the release of Ron McFarland's new book from Cirque Press, A Variable Sense of Things.
People who staff the door since this all began (14 years ago!) Lynda Humphrey and Kay Fisher will be staffing again and Lynda will bring copies of Miss Bebe Comes to America - the adorable, bi-lingual immigration story of a kitten, illustrated by Judi Nyerges.

07/16/2024

Join us, in person, at the Writer's Block, Wednesday night, 6 pm. Brian Hutton is reading and you can help read the poems of his selected poet, Ani Difranco. Just send an email to [email protected] or just show up and we will set you up. Followed by open mic, until closing a 8 pm.

07/11/2024

Next week. Join us to hear Brian Hutton read his poetry and sign up now to read poems by Ani DeFranco. This is going to be great.

07/08/2024

Cirque Press author writes about the flag for The Hill

We cannot concede to the notion that patriotism is the province of extremists.

07/05/2024

Tonight at the Kaffee Klatsch.
Fantastic poets reading.
A rare gathering.
Join us at 6:30 pm

07/04/2024

Fantastic article about Alaskan Publishers.
Proud to read of Cirque Press in this company.

“Alaskan authors share a literary genealogy,” says Sandra Kleven, who runs Cirque Press. She invests in book-length, consequential literature written by Alaskans...

06/30/2024

06/27/2024

Author, Marian Elliott on the radio.

Community Radio for the Susitna Valley

06/27/2024

A call for poets to read poems of peace.
Send a note to [email protected]
We are planning a reading at the Kaffee Klatch on July 5th - First Friday at 6 pm. Send a note to me at my personal email above and we will put together a roster of poets with poems of peace.
In person. In Anchorage, Alaska.
At this time, we have about four signed up. Probably ten more max. Each poet to read three poems or for ten minutes.
Thanks!
Image by Nard Claar.

06/17/2024

At Poetry Parley this week our featured poet is Barbara Flaherty. She picked Robert Bly as her poet of influence.
We need more to read the wonderful poems of Robert Bly
Please email us at [email protected] to sign up.
Thanks

06/13/2024

New from Cirque Press -- Sara Berg, a Homer writer, lived long enough to complete this memoir. She passed away early this year but we carried on helped by her husband Ed Berg and a great team at Cirque Press. This included Homer designer, Kari Odden.
Order on Amazon. Link in comments.

06/10/2024

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6BJ5LBP?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_MNGDYD6WM2WCFC0GKS7F_3&skipTwisterOG=2

War is hell for men. We’ve always known that. As you read this book, you will discover that war is hell for women too. Sara bravely walked into that hell and made a difference. Then she bravely wrote her deeply personal memoir. I applaud her raw honesty, her courage to relive the mud and blood of....

06/01/2024

Cirque Press author, Marian Elliott is reading and signing in Portland, OR, next week. Her memoir tells quite a story spanning a long road trip to forget and to find tomorrow. See details here:

05/27/2024

https://www.adn.com/arts/books/2024/05/25/book-review-a-gifted-storyteller-shares-her-early-yukon-river-life/

Theresa “Tiny” Devlin’s memoir offers an intimate look into an Interior life shaped by family and cultural values during a little-explored period of Alaska’s history.

05/22/2024

Hello everybody,
Tomorrow night at seven I will be reading with Alaska Women Speak
I am in Kotzebue, which is really fun to be thinking that I’m on zoom across Alaska and beyond.

Wendy Brooker is also reading.
I will add the names of the other readers in comments.
This is the link


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05/14/2024

Author, Marian Elliott, is heading east on her first book tour. Check out her amazing new book here.

Out of the Dark: A Memoir

05/07/2024

 It is the new Cirque out today.

Cirque Journal features poetry, writings, art and photography of authors and artists in the North Pacific Rim area.

05/07/2024

https://cirquejournal.com/book/tinys_stories/

05/01/2024

This is happening. Be there.