New & Recent Titles
Kenning Editions is proud to announce the first full-length collection in English by Mexican poet and literary activist Dolores Dorantes. sexoPUROsexoVELOZ and Septiembre: a bilingual edition of books two and three of Dolores Dorantes, by Dolores Dorantes. Translated by Jen Hofer. A copublication of Kenning Editions and Counterpath Press.
sexoPUROsexoVELOZ and Septiembre are books two and three of Mexican poet Dolores Dorantes lifelong project titled Dolores Dorantes. These works consist of fragmented interlocking sequences of poems that create a scaffolding to frame Dorantes’ vivid explorations of the intensely personal and intensely social questions that inhabit the space called “Dolores Dorantes.” Dorantes writes, “May be / I had to forget how…” ; it is from within the particular experience she offers that we might, perhaps, begin to remember why.
“The desire of poetry, surrounding certain texts, is to unbind itself, moving according to its own architecture without explanations or reasoning. Dolores Dorantes is a visionary book whose absent parts reclaim the author and haunt the reader. It contains spectral dimensions, whether one considers the relationship between poet and translator (collaborators, really) who shadow each other across the pages, or if you stop to notice the interplay (intertext) Dorantes allows her readers.”–Guillermo Juan Parra
Dorantes was born in Veracruz in 1973 and has lived most of her life in Ciudad Juárez, where socioeconomic violence and politically-charged daily brutalities have informed her radically humane and beautifully incisive work as a poet, journalist, and cultural worker. Dorantes is a rare presence in Mexican literary communities, in that she takes a wide-ranging international stance toward poetry and poetics while refusing to accept state support from a government she cannot respect. She has published four book-length works of poetry in Mexico, and is a founding member of the border arts collective Compañía Frugal (The Frugal Company), which counts among its activities publication of the monthly poetry broadside series Hoja Frugal, printed in editions of 4,000 and distributed free throughout Mexico.
ISBN: 978-0-9767364-2-4. $14.95 Order from SPD, 2CO, Amazon, via subscription, or from Counterpath.
Hannah Weiner’s Open House continues to enjoy a warm reception, including from Ron Silliman, who, on his weblog, calls it “a wonderful collection” that “accomplish[es] something major.” Thom Donovan’s exhaustive and lucid account of the Poetry Project’s celebration of Weiner’s “vision” and legacy is a featured article in The Fanzine, and James Kalm has posted a video “report” on the event in one, two, three parts. An interview with the editor of Hannah Weiner’s Open House, Patrick Durgin, is forthcoming in the literary journal Crayon. American Book Review and Aufgabe also plan to run reviews of the book in their forthcoming issues.
ISBN 0-9767364-1-1 $14.95 Order from SPD, 2CO, or Amazon.
Subscriptions
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Recent and Upcoming Readings
Look for Dolores Dorantes and Jen Hofer on the East Coast and in the Midwest in the fall of ‘08.
Photograph of Jen Hofer and Dolores Dorantes by Alli Warren (New Yipes Series, Oakland, CA).
Rodney Koeneke and Laura Moriarty reviewed the recent Kenning Editions book tour.
Saturday, November 17th
Red Rover Series Experiment #17: Silent Teaching. A Tribute to Hannah Weiner. A multi-media celebration of and response to the life and work of Hannah Weiner, featuring Mark Booth, Maria Damon, Judith Goldman, Roberto Harrison, Todd Mattei, Jenny Roberts, Jen Scappetone, and Tim Yu. Plus, a surprise or two. 7:00 PM at the Spare Room, 4100 W. Grand Avenue, 2nd floor, suite 210-212, Chicago, IL. Suggested donation $3.00
Wednesday, November 28th
A reading to celebrate the vision of poet Hannah Weiner (Clairvoyant Journal, Little Books/Indians, Spoke) and the publication of Hannah Weiner’s Open House by Kenning Editions, featuring readings, performances and recollections by Charles Bernstein, Lee Ann Brown, Abigail Child, Thom Donovan, Patrick Durgin, Laura Elrick, Kaplan Page Harris, Andrew Levy, John Perreault, Rodrigo Toscano, Carolee Schneemann, James Sherry, Anne Tardos & Lewis Warsh. 8:00 PM at The Poetry Project of St. Mark’s Church, at the corner of 2nd Ave and 10th St in Manhattan.