Dan Smith will be reading at Arcadia Books, Spring Green, Wisconsin, Sunday August 22, 2021 | 3:00PM – 4:00PM. Prior to the event, James Bohnen of Arcadia spoke with Smith about Ancestral and Smith’s writing process.
You can buy your copy of Ancestral from us prior to the event or in the store on the day.
by Barry Adams, Wisconsin State Journal
| Daniel Smith is featured in the Sunday, July 18, 2021 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal. Barry Adams interviewed Smith at his home near Arena, Wisconsin. In Ancestral, from Water’s Edge Press, Smith draws on his decades of farming and his experiences as a farm financial counselor in Wisconsin. Many of the poems express the anguish people feel when they realize they can no longer sustain the family farm. Yet Smith’s poetry goes beyond such stories and reveals his deep and enduring connection to the land. From the article: “It bothers me a lot,” Smith said. “The economic,social and cultural impacts of farming are very complex. I think going through all of that and having experienced the emotional turbulence of that really helped me write about it and writing helped me deal with it.” |
Read the article and listen to Dan read “Dry Dirt,” a poem from Ancestral. [Permalink] |
Ed Werstein is a guest on Dan Denton’s podcast “The Blue Collar Gospel Hour.” Take a listen. You can order Ed’s book, Communique: Poems From The Headlines, in our shop.
We’re pleased to welcome poet Ed Block to Water’s Edge Press. We’ll be publishing his book Shell Dreams this fall. The book is a collection of poems evoking the flora and fauna of Florida.
Ed is a resident of Greendale, Wisconsin since 1990, and Emeritus Professor of English at Marquette University since 2012. He has been writing poetry seriously since the 1990s.
“The Velocity of Love leaves one with a sense of wonder over how personal tragedy can yield a universalizing love,” writes Sylvia Cavanaugh in a new review of Kathryn Gahl’s The Velocity of Love, published at ZVONA i NARI*, on Zin Daily, an online literary magazine in Croatia.
Cavanaugh is a contributing editor for Verse-Virtual: An Online Community of Poets and is English Language Editor for Poetry Hall: A Chinese and English Bilingual Journal. We published her collection of poems, Icarus: Anthropology of Addiction in 2019.
*According to its website, “the idea behind ZVONA i NARI Library & Literary Retreat is to provide a space for writers, artists and other professionals who work with the book as a medium, to bring them all in direct contact with each other and involve them with the local community.”
Georgia Ressmeyer, author of the forthcoming book of poetry, Leading A Life, was a guest on Mental Health America’s Pink Chair Sessions, a place for community conversations in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
Many of the poems in Ressmeyer’s book come from her experience as a public defender, where she often represented people with mental illness.
The following review of Leading a Life comes from Julie L. Preder~Executive Director, Mental Health America Sheboygan County
“Georgia Ressmeyer takes us on a journey from the courtroom to a woman reflecting through the looking glass. Each poem provides historical memories with profound emotion. Her lyrics set the stage for owning our story and bringing forth inner peace. Ressmeyer demonstrates through words that compassion, empathy, and transparency can set us free.”
Watch the video:
Leading a Life is now available for pre-order. Publication date: September 2021.
The current issue of Portage Magazine includes two reviews of Karl Elder’s books, most notably for us, the one we published, Alpha Images. Check it out: Alpha Images: Poems Selected and New by Karl Elder; reviewed by Fred Kreutz
The Distance Between Stars by Jeff Elzinga has been selected as a finalist in the Literary Fiction category of the 2020 Midwest Book Awards. Finalists are chosen from more than 240 entries from publishers all over the Midwest.
The Midwest Book Awards is one of the longest-running literary awards in the country celebrating excellence in independent publishing.
Stay tuned for the winners to be announced on June 26!
June 19, Water’s Edge Press will participate in the 2021 Maker Faire, held at Mead Public Library and City Green in Sheboygan, WI. According to the event website, the event is “the Greatest Show (& Tell) on Earth – a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness.”
Sheboygan Poet Laureate, Lisa Vihos, has also organized an Acoustic Cafe in association with this event that will feature many of the writers from Water’s Edge Press. They’ll read selections from their books and be available for book signing afterwards.
At the Water’s Edge Press table, visitors can learn about Dawn Hogue’s path to small press publishing. All of the books from Water’s Edge Press will also be available to purchase.
Please mark your calendars: June 19, 2021, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visit the event website for more information.
In celebration of National Poetry Month, Arcadia Books (Spring Green, WI) hosted Daniel and Austin Smith for a conversation about poetry, the influence of writers like Tobias Wolff, Lucien Stryk, Michael Mott, and Gary Snyder, and how growing up in a community of writers shaped them both. Daniel and Austin both share selections of their work.
Consider this video to be a free course in how to read, craft, and appreciate poetry from two fine American poets who happen to be father and son. The two discuss origins of their poems, their interdependent growth as writers, the impact of place in their writing, and how effective it is to blend genres.
Ancestral by Daniel Smith is the newest book from Water’s Edge Press, due out June 1. We agree with Austin’s assessment that his father’s book “Conveys emotion via the physical world.” Rooted in a Midwestern landscape, Ancestral’s sense of place is never “claustrophobic,”
Austin says, adding that the poems “remind [him] of the poets [he loves], like Ted Kooser, who writes so beautifully about Nebraska. There’s a universality to the poems despite their placedness.”
Enjoy the video and pre-order Ancestral. Austin’s books are available here.
Ancestral
$25.00
A Hollow Bone
$16.00
Lamenting My Failure to Learn How to Tap Dance: And Other Missteps
$18.00
Something Novel Came In Spring
$15.00
Poems from the Winter House
$25.00
