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Founder's Statement
I founded Scarlet Tanager Books in 1999 because I love
literature, and much of the work I love best has not been
available to the general public. This is the work I hear
at poetry readings and writers' groups, read in small
literary magazines, or learn about because the author
is a friend of a friend.
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A tremendous
amount of writing, especially poetry and short fiction, is overlooked
by publishers, large and small. You
might wonder if maybe the publishers pass on this work because it
is badly written, too complex for anyone but a literary scholar
to understand, or concerns topics of interest to very few. I have
found that none of these possibilities holds true: much of the work
that never finds its way into print is exquisitely crafted, accessible,
and concerned with themes of interest to a broad audience. By publishing
collections of poetry and short fiction, I hope to enable some of
this work to reach the audience it deserves.
The first book I published, released in 1999, was Everything
Irish, a collection of poems by Judy
Wells. These poems tell the story of Wells's Irish Catholic
girlhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, reveal the myriad ways
in which this girlhood has left its imprint on her adult life,
and describe her trips to Ireland to search for her roots. The
poems are moving and witty, and have the narrative flow of a novel
or memoir.
The second Scarlet Tanager book, released in January 2000, was
Catching the Bullet and
Other Stories by Daniel
Hawkes. What drew me to these stories was their perceptive
treatment of relationships between brothers, fathers and sons,
and male friends. These are relationships that I want to know
more about but, as a woman, can never fully experience firsthand.
In June 2000, our third and fourth books appeared: red
clay is talking, poems by Naomi
Ruth Lowinsky; and my own poetry collection, Wild
One. In red clay is talking Lowinsky
takes us on a spiritual journey where milestones are built from
myth, dream, and pivotal life experiences. The poems oscillate
between the quotidian and the unconscious, revealing unexpected
bridges and making sudden leaps. The poems in Wild One
are narrative and autobiographical. Collectively telling the story
of my life, they trace a psychological journey from childhood
to adulthood, through rebellion, juvenile delinquency and teen
motherhood to maturity and acceptance of myself and others, with
all our differences and shining flaws.
Visions:
Paintings Seen Through the Optic of Poetry, by Marc
Elihu Hofstadter, and The
"Fallen Western Star" Wars, edited by Jack
Foley, came out in September 2001. Visions is
a collection of poems inspired by the paintings Jackson Pollock,
Mark Rothko, ChangDai-chien, Georgia O'Keeffe and the California
Impressionists. In The "Fallen Western Star" Wars,
Jack Foley has compiled letters and articles responding to Dana
Gioia's provocative essay "Fallen Western Star: The Decline of
San Francisco as a Literary Region."
In March 2002, Scarlet Tanager published Embrace,
poems by Risa Kaparo. These
poems are the work of an alchemist who turns loss and abuse into
celebration and redemption. Would that she could show us all how
to do so! Her work abounds in beauty and lyric intensity.
The
latest additions to the Scarlet Tanager line, appearing in July
2005, are three poetry collections: Bone
Strings, by Anne
Coray; crimes of
the dreamer, by Naomi
Ruth Lowinsky; and Call
Home, by Judy
Wells. Each of these books is uniquely compelling. Coray explores
the starkly gorgeous landscapes of her native Alaska and the inner
landscapes that are their emotional counterparts; Lowinsky, a
Jungian analyst, shares the dreams that came to her during her
own analysis; and, with grace and affection, Wells tells the story
of her mother's death and the painful but sometimes humorous process
of dismantling her mother's longtime home with her three siblings.
Scarlet Tanager books are available from Small
Press Distribution (spdbooks.org) and Amazon.com.
They can be ordered through any bookstore.
Lucille Lang Day
August 2005 |
