Saturnalia Books

09/16/2024

“[...]Eroticism requires imperfection. (Perfection is plain, there is no tension in it, no point of interest.)”

The internal landscape, Eros in the mundane, and more -- Andrea Jurjević answers our questions on engaging the limits of fantasy, of the body, and the bi-continental home in "In Another Country."
Check the link in our bio to read the full interview
https://saturnaliabooks.com/2024/08/04/an-interview-andrea-jurjevic/

—
Andrea Jurjević is a Croatian poet, writer and literary translator. She is the author of two poetry collections and a chapbook: In Another Country, winner of the 2022 Saturnalia Books Prize; Small Crimes, winner of the 2015 Philip Levine Prize; and Nightcall, which was the 2021 ACME Poem Company Surrealist Series selection. Andrea’s book-length translations from Croatian include Olja Savičević’s Mamasafari (Diálogos Press, 2018) and Marko Pogačar’s Dead Letter Office (The Word Works, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 National Translation Award in Poetry.
https://andreajurjevic.com/

07/15/2024

Saturnalia Books is delighted to announce our 2024 contest winners!

The winning manuscript, Run it Back by Kortney Morrow, was chosen for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize by guest judge Carmen Giménez and will be published in 2026.

The runner-up manuscript, No One Is Daddy by Dylan Krieger, was also chosen by guest judge Carmen Giménez and will be published in 2026.

Saturnalia Books' staff selected The Valleys Are So Lush and Steep by Trace Peterson and The Drag Gospel of Q***r Jesus by Chris Watkins for the two Alma Book Awards, publishing in 2025 and 2026 respectively.

Congratulations Kortney, Dylan, Trace, and Chris!

Here is the list of our fabulous finalists!

Red Redlight by Shelly Taylor
The Panic Cotillion by Tom Thompson
The Want Monster by Suzanne Richardson
Plaint by Sarah Sousa
Fool Candle by Jennifer MacKenzie
The Outskirts of Happiness by Michael Montlack
Fool's Gold by Michael Chang

Thank you to all those who submitted, and please consider sending your work to us again next year

07/15/2024

Saturnalia Books is delighted to announce our 2024 contest winners!

The winning manuscript, Run it Back by Kortney Morrow, was chosen for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize by guest judge Carmen Giménez and will be published in 2026. The runner-up manuscript, No One Is Daddy by Dylan Krieger, was also chosen by guest judge Carmen Giménez and will be published in 2026.

Saturnalia Books' staff selected The Valleys Are So Lush and Steep by Trace Peterson and The Drag Gospel of Q***r Jesus by Chris Watkins for the two Alma Book Awards, publishing in 2025 and 2026 respectively.

Congratulations Kortney, Dylan, Trace, and Chris!

Here is the list of our fabulous finalists!

Red Redlight by Shelly Taylor
The Panic Cotillion by Tom Thompson
The Want Monster by Suzanne Richardson
Plaint by Sarah Sousa
Fool Candle by Jennifer MacKenzie
The Outskirts of Happiness by Michael Montlack
Fool's Gold by Michael Chang

Thank you to all those who submitted, and please consider sending your work to us again next year

07/04/2024

A fantastic deep read and attentive review by Alexander Dickow of "Cutting the Stems" -- wonderful praise for our poet, Virginie Lalucq, and translators Claire Mcquerry & Celine Bourhis!

"[...] But one of Lalucq's most interesting devices is misspelling, and these are sometimes quite purely literal, and even more irreducible to analogy than etymological roots. [...] These misspellings generate contingent associations, accidents of language not based in the resemblance of the objects involved and allowing the network of associations to proliferate beyond the limits of analogy, beyond the resources of metaphor alone. These accidents are like the asperities of a rocky outcropping (forgive me this…analogy); they provide an unpredictable texture to the poetic text and allow the words to generate the associations rather than the other way around; in this sense, as per the suggestion from Mallarmé’s famed essay “Crise de vers” (“Crisis in verse”), Lalucq “cède l’initiative aux mots” (cedes the initiative to the words)."

Link to read the full analysis below:

Reviews of recent volumes of poetry and related works of criticism and poetics

01/04/2024

A beautiful article from DIACRITIK on Virginie Lalucq and "Cutting The Stems" -- what wonderful recognition for our poet and translators! Congratulations!

--
Excerpted from Laurent Zimmerman’s Article in DIACRITIK, translated from the French by Celine Bourhis and Claire Mcquerry:


"There are, in contemporary poetry, what we can call classics. That is books published ten or twenty years ago, which are still very relevant and open one of the great possible avenues of poetic writing today. Virginie Lalucq's first book Cutting the Stems is one of these.

What a joy to return to this text which, even though it was the author’s first book, presents itself as poetic – but playful, inventive, very funny and exciting, completely free – and shows in a brilliant way what poetry can do today.

And Virginie Lalucq still has a thousand ways of making words escape, of giving them back their freedom, that is to say, ours. Serious manners, playful manners, because if everything is not serious in Cutting the Stems everything is nevertheless rigorous, and of another seriousness ultimately, which works the words according to the sound, the associations, the ruptures, the reminders, the contrasts, according to the possibilities which they offer and which we usually do not see.[…] Real lures and false lures, we will have understood, since the essential thing is the movement and to establish a poetics of circulation, a happy, cheerful, energetic circulation, the greatest zaniness also being a truth. Truth, and intensity too, found with these flowers of rhythm, imagination, and courage to lead one's life, and first of all with this disconcerting poetics, of invention and invitation to invention."

Il y a, dans la poésie contemporaine, ce qu’on peut appeler des classiques. Des livres publiés il y a dix, vingt ans, encore tout à fait actifs, ouvrant l’une des grandes voies possibles de l’écrit…

12/07/2023

Congratulations to our very own Owen McLeod!
"Lacrimosa" is the winner of the Copper Nickel Editors' Prize in Poetry for issue 37!

Read the full poem here:
https://copper-nickel.org/lacrimosa/

Owen's collection, "Before After":
https://www.ipgbook.com/before-after-products-9781947817524.php

12/06/2023

It's our Annual Fundraiser and Reading!
Come listen to our wonderful poets and translators read from their latest works.
Tomorrow, Thursday December 7th at 7pm EST
Link to the Zoom registration:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkduiqqT8oE9xvGfuC0IqfFzzMVn3s3kfF #/registration

Featured readers:

Alison Titus
Katy Lederer
Leah Poole Osowski
Lee Upton
Celine Bourhis
Claire McQuerry

12/06/2023

Please join us in congratulating our 2023 translation prize winners!

The Malinda A. Markham Translation prize winner, chosen by the Saturnalia Books editorial staff:

"Wherever We Float, That's Home"
by Maya Tevet Dayan and translated from Hebrew by Jane Medved

Our Finalists:
"ecografitti"
by Ruxandra Novac and translated from Romanian by Sarah Thompson

"A More Than Three Figure"
by Kim Yurim and translated from Korean by Megan Sungyoon

"V"
by Daniela Danz and translated from German by Monika Cassel

"L'Audace"
by Pascale Petit and translated from French by Annetta Riley

Thank you to all those who submitted! Please consider sending your work to us again next year.
--
(see below comments for author bios)

11/23/2023

11/23/2023

Here it is! We are excited to announce our Pushcart nominees!

Leah Poole Osowski: TEMPORALLY
Owen McCleod: NOVEMBER
Katy Lederer: CROWNING
Virginie Lalucq (tr. Claire Mcquerry and Celine Bourhis): Excerpt from CUTTING THE STEMS ("She says HER")
Lee Upton: HYSTERIA
Allison Titus: I HAVE TOO MANY TABS OPEN ON MY LAPTOP & THE WORLD IS ENDING

Congratulations and best of luck to all!

11/16/2023

11/16/2023

Our very own Leah Poole Osowski is the daily feature on Poems.com! Congrats, Leah! Check out the link in our story to view the feature and the link in our bio to check out Leah’s collection, “Exceeds Us”

poems.com/poem/temporally/

11/16/2023

Leah Poole Osowski's poem, "Temporally," is todays daily feature on Poems.com! Congrats, Leah! Check it out!
https://poems.com/poem/temporally/

from "Exceeds Us" published by Saturnalia

11/01/2023

We love a submission extension!

https://saturnaliabooks.com/poetry-prize/translation/

11/01/2023

There’s still time!

Check the link in our bio for info on how to submit!

https://saturnaliabooks.com/poetry-prize/translation/

10/26/2023

The Engineers by Katy Lederer has been featured in The New York Times Fall Poetry Picks!

Click here to see the full list at the New York Times, or check the Sunday Book Review on Oct 29th:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/books/review/new-this-week.html

Get your copy of The Engineers here:
https://www.ipgbook.com/the-engineers-products-9781947817609.php

10/24/2023

"The right to refuse what’s offered can be something to celebrate and even a marker of freedom."

The elasticity of poetry, the power of forgetting, and more -- Lee Upton answers some of our favorite questions on writing, tradition, and "The Day Every Day Is."

Full Interview Here:
https://saturnaliabooks.com/2023/10/20/an-interview-with-lee-upton/

--

Lee Upton’s books include her seventh collection of poetry, The Day Every Day Is (Saturnalia); Visitations: Stories (Yellow Shoe Fiction Series); Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles: Poems (Cleveland State University Poetry Center); and The Tao of Humiliation: Stories (BOA). She is also the author of four books of literary criticism; a collection of essays, Swallowing the Sea: On Writing & Ambition, Boredom, Purity & Secrecy (Tupelo); and the novella The Guide to the Flying Island (Miami University Press). Her novel, Tabitha, Get Up, is forthcoming in May 2024 from Sagging Meniscus Press. Another novel, Wrongful, will be out in May 2025

10/24/2023

10/22/2023

Female-identified poetry translators: Submit your manuscript to Saturnalia Books’ Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize by October 31 for a shot at $2K and book publication. Learn more: at.pw.org/SaturnaliaT

10/18/2023

10/18/2023

Cutting the Stems, by Virginie Lalucq, Translated by Claire McQuerry and Céline Bourhis, winner of the Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize

Virginie Lalucq was born in 1975 and lives in Paris. She is the author of Couper les tiges (Act Mem/ Comp’act, 2001) and Fortino Sámano, Les débordements du poème (with Jean-Luc-Nancy, Galilée 2004) translated by Sylvain Gallais and Cynthia Hogue (Omnidawn, 2012). She has been member of the editorial collective for the journal Nioques for twenty years. The Center for the Study of Poetry (ENS) in Lyons describes Lalucq’s poetry: “A certain desire to experiment characterizes her work, a desire that translates most clearly in the number of collaborative performances and writing projects.”

Claire McQuerry‘s poetry and translations have appeared in Denver Quarterly Review, Tin House, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Permafrost, and other journals. Her poetry collection Lacemakers (Southern Illinois University Press) won the Crab Orchard First Book Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Workshop, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prizes, and the Virgnia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. She is an Assistant Professor at Bradley University.

Céline Bourhis is a lecturer at Bradley University where she teaches global literature and technical writing courses. Her research interests include postcolonial studies, postmodern literature, and life writing. Prior to her teaching appointment, she worked as an editorial assistant at Dalkey Archive Press and published interviews with authors in Context.

Out now! Link to purchase:
https://www.ipgbook.com/cutting-the-stems-products-9781947817586.php

10/17/2023

10/17/2023

High Lonesome, by Allison Titus

Allison Titus is the author of the poetry collections The True Book of Animal Homes and Sum of Every Lost Ship, the novel The Arsonist’s Song Has Nothing to Do With Fire, and several chapbooks. Her work has appeared in Tin House, A Public Space, The Believer and elsewhere. A recipient of poetry fellowships from the NEA and Yaddo, she is co-editor of the forthcoming poetry anthology The New Sent(i)ence, a collection of poems that center the non-human animal’s consciousness, agency and creaturehood, out with Trinity University Press in 2024.

Link to purchase! https://www.ipgbook.com/high-lonesome-products-9781947817562.php

10/16/2023

The Engineers, by Katy Lederer, winner of the Saturnalia Books Alma Award

Katy Lederer is the author of three previous books of poetry and a memoir. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the Boston Review, and the Paris Review, among many other publications. She has also reported on energy and climate change for n+1, the New York Times, and the New Yorker online. A recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell, she has taught poetry workshops and climate change writing at Columbia University, Fordham University, Barnard College, and the New School.

Get your copy!

https://www.ipgbook.com/the-engineers-products-9781947817609.php

10/15/2023

10/15/2023

Make room on your shelves! It's Publishing Day!
Please join us in welcoming these outstanding collections to the Saturnalia Books home:

The Engineers, by Katy Lederer
High Lonesome, by Allison Titus
Cutting the Stems, by By Virginie Lalucq, Translated by Celine Bourhis and Claire McQuerry

We hope you love them as much as we do!

Link to purchase in our bio!
Your continued support makes independent publishing possible!

09/26/2023

At last! We are now accepting submissions!

The Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize honors the life and work of award-winning poet and translator Malinda A. Markham.

Manuscripts must be a translation by a female translator of a female poet. Female is interpreted as anyone who identifies as female, including AFAB nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and intersex.

https://saturnaliabooks.com/poetry-prize/translation/