Bloof Books

Bloof Books is an independent small press publishing poetry in paperback & handmade chapbooks. Hi Water Press is an imprint offering hand-printed art & goods. (Posts by @shanna, unless otherwise noted.)

Bloof Books boosted:
2023-04-01

Happy #NaPoWriMo / #GloPoWriMo to all who celebrate. I’ll be posting daily drafts at the @bloofbooks blog, along with a dozen or so other Bloof poets.

No poems yet this morning, but the melee is all set to begin. Here’s where we’ll 🐝: bloofbooks.com/blog

What’s NaPoWriMo? Go see: napowrimo.net/about/

#poetry #poem #writing

Bloof Books boosted:
2023-02-16

Here’s a poem by Nicole Steinberg for #VerseThursday. (I’m still in the weeds with projects, so I haven’t been here much. When will I learn not to take so much on?!)

Pink text of an untitled poem, arranged in couplets, on a dark periwinkle background. The full text: 

a woman in a red bra peruses my books sleepy-eyed as she preps the French press

I give in to the constant urge to smell her
as if to make sure she’s still there / how odd it is

to have a “home life” / a blackened bathtub
and shit stains of flies still polka-dotted on my brain

the end of my mother’s life drowned out like the final song played on the Titanic

dear Elsie: what if the only way out is to go down with the ship? that’s trauma my therapist says

did you know you’re a survivor? I can’t help it
if I flaunt my Taurus moon like a statement earring

if suddenly after all this time 
my most rebellious act is to nest

—Nicole Steinberg, from Dear Elsie / Setlzer
Bloof Books boosted:

Let the 5yo sleep in because we are having a snow day (its own fiasco). But this 100% guarantees he came downstairs by himself while I was trying to rewrite a sex scene.

#WritingLife #5amWritersClub #WritingCommunity #5amRevisingClub

2023-02-09

Maureen is also reading with Sasha Dugdale & Rodrigo Toscano for Seam Poetry on Sunday!

Alas, the only site they use is FB, where the Zoom link will be posted before the event:

facebook.com/events/5018933018)

A black-and-white graphic with reading information, featuring three poets, whose photos are in a central row: Sasha Dugdale, Maureen Thorson, Rodrigo Toscano. The text at the top says SEAM: a poetry reading series. Februrary 12, 2023 at 3 p.m. Eastern. (This is an virtual reading, with Zoom link available via the linked Facebook page.)
2023-02-09

“Maureen Thorson's essays are adroit and aphoristic, resonant and recursive, and stealthily instructive in the ways of the world. These generous and deeply considered writings are exemplary in their use of control and volatility, offering a telescopic window into a vast and fascinating mind.” —Natalie Shapero

ON DREAMS, essays by Maureen Thorson. Preorder sale starts tomorrow at bloofbooks.com.

#Poetry #Essay #Memoir #LyricEssay #OnDreams #LyricEssay #MedicalMemoir

A blurb by Natalie Shapero about Maureen Thorson’s forthcoming book of lyric essays: On Dreams. White text floats on a painted background, with curved pink, black, and mint green vertical strokes in an abstract arrangement. The artwork is an outtake from the not-yet-revealed book cover.

Full text of blurb is the same as in the main post.
Bloof Books boosted:
2022-12-28

She’s unsatisfied
the wild night shift
brings out coyotes
I know a blue song
when I recognize it
prize of conviction
a bovine torment
I hear heartbreak

—Nikki Wallschlaeger is #poet of the day at Poets.org

poets.org/poem/cows-evening

#poetry #poem

Bloof Books boosted:
2022-12-20
2022-12-17

…again, for all the support you have all shown for Bloof’s wacky lil projects this past year, and for Hi Water Press’s inky things too! We have more subscribers than ever (just 5 of those left, by the way) and the individual chaps have been selling so fast it left my head spinning.

Next up are a paperback by Maureen Thorson (On Dreams) and a chap by Nicole Steinberg (dear Elsie / seltzer). Happy holidays to all who celebrate and cozy winter vibes all around.

Love,
@shanna & the poets of Bloof

2022-12-17

🧵 🪡 Sewing #poetry #chapbooks and watching the snow. ALL remaining orders for both Irene Vázquez’s and CAConrad’s will be in the mail as of today! (If you haven’t gotten your tracking email, check the dreaded “promotions” tab of your gmail.)

It feels like a good time to say THANK YOU…

Stacks of Take Me to the Water chapbooks in process of assembly on a table in the foreground, beyond which a living room (with boxes in a chair, bookcase, etc.) and a snowy view through the windows are shown.
2022-12-15

These Loon & Chick cards are back in stock! Hand-printed linocut in black oil-based relief ink and red archival accents on subtly texture white printmaking card, with matching white envelope. It’s a card, but also a tiny piece of #AffordableArt, since it pops in neatly to a 5 x 7 mat for framing.

bloofbooks.com/product/loon-ch

Two white cards printed with a linocut design of a common loon swimming with a little loon chick on its back. The birds are black and white, and the parent loon has a red eye. The card on the left has a little red heart above the chick. The cards are in my hand, held outdoors in natural light with big boulders as a background.
2022-12-15

@ronkjeffries She sure is! 🔥

Bloof Books boosted:
2022-12-15

Happy #VerseThursday to all who celebrate.

Here’s a #poem from me, originally published in American #Poetry Review.

A screenshot of the poem from the American Poetry Review’s website. Full text: 

CONGREGATION AT THE RIVER
Late hours roll in               sooty & untenanted
the ghosts gone wandering          Woe's plateau
feels plain           like no terrain at all
 
From somewhere              beyond the reach of this pale lamp
a pack stirs            hunched & rangy             an evolving promise
not to spring              Do you recall the dark
 
-knotted trees we saw          across the river's broad waist?
How they held           a number of things
we made no sense of        until they fled
 
gray bodies spanning several feet        once unfolded
each neck an arrow           pointing resolutely away
Will we find them again        if we follow?
 
They say one's grave       is the simplest place
to find                You just look down
2022-12-15

Here’s a new #poem by Jennifer L. Knox for #VerseThursday!

We’ve published four (4!) inimitably Knoxy books with Jennifer, and you can find those here: bloofbooks.com/authors/jennife

They are included in our 25% off holiday sale, so be sure to enter your coupon code. Knox’s poems are a great bet to convert someone in your life who thinks they “don’t like #poetry.” We hear this from students allllll the time.

Screenshot from Berfois with the following poem and Jennifer’s bio below it.

Puttin’ the U in Depersonalization

Townsfolk, whatever your names are, forgive me!
I’ve been an unmappable crop-trampling moon—
panoramming donuts on the interstate as your barns
and faces disappear like butter in a hell-hot cast iron pan.
Now I see ya’ll are super buoyant, stuffed with shock-
absorbing firefoam and trampoline springs! I mean
this as a compliment to the yous I know now: I never
wanted to love you. I—the only child of flinchers
whose mother tongue was pickax Braille mimed
in a diamond mine. You looked like lizards…until I
figured out you guys were planning a surprise party
for me!!! Well done! You don’t have to say it!
I feel you! What kind of cake do I want?
What kind of cake do you want?
2022-12-14

On track to get all existent orders for chapbooks out the door this week. Thank you so much, readers!

Copies of I Prefer the Forests Making Blankets from Themselves by CAConrad and Take Me to the Water by Irene Vázquez lying on a work table. A tube of printmaking ink and an ink knife sit above them.
Bloof Books boosted:
Iris Richardson Fine Art 🇩🇪🇺🇸📷irisRichardson@mastodon.art
2022-12-12

If you have never spent Christmas in Italy you are missing out. They know how to put on a display. One street looks more stunning than the next. A week before the US Thanksgiving the displays go up. #Art #Artist #IrisRichardsonArtist #ArtCollector #BuyIntoArt #ShopEarly #FreeShipping #GiftIdeas #Christmas2022 #Christmas #FediGiftShop pictorem.com/536608/Golden%20C #FlorenceItaly #Italy #Traveling

Golden Christmas doubles and long strings of white light hang over the streets in Florence Italy during Christmas. It is a beautiful gold and white display looking like lights are raining from heaven. #ChristmasDecor #Christmas #FlorenceItaly #IrisRichardsonArtist
2022-12-11

Just added to the Hi Water Press section of our site, museum-quality fine art prints of these two mixed-media birds by @shanna : Northern Flicker and Cedar Waxwing. International shipping and framing options also available!

bloofbooks.com/books/hi-water/

A screenshot from the Hi Water Press page of the Bloof website, showing the Fine Art Prints section. The images are of Shanna Compton’s Northern Flicker and Cedar Waxwing prints, and the text above explains the ordering options via Fine Art America.
2022-12-06

Hi Water holiday cards are here! Choose cedar waxwing, tree swallows, or a mixed set. 🎄Art by @shanna 📬

bloofbooks.com/product/winter-

#HolidayCards #GreetingCards #ChristmasCards #ShopSmall #MastoArt

A holiday card featuring a pair of sweetly swooping tree swallows in a snowy landscape. They each have a sprig of red winterberries in their mouth, which contrasts nicely with their dark wings and blue bodies. The words below say “wishing you all the cozy holiday vibes.” My hand is holding the card and a matching red envelope, and a bit of my living room with a decorated tree is in the background.A holiday card featuring a beautiful cedar waxwing sitting on a branch in a birch forest. He has a coppery head, buff back, dark wings and tail with bright yellow accents, and red waxy tips at the ends of his wings. He faces right, and the words below say “may your days be merry & bright.” My hand is holding the card and a matching red envelope, and a bit of my living room with a decorated tree is in the background.
2022-11-22

Good morning, bees. We’ve not been too active here yet, but that will change. Planning to regularly post/boost poems by our poets & others. Thanks for the follows. If you want to get to know us better, look—we’re putting on a sale through the end of the year.

A green announcement graphic with sea-foam green and yellow text outlining the same offer described in our main caption. It’s also decorated with some evergreen branches and snowflakes as well as some geometric shapes in the corners.
2022-11-22

@MikeJung 💯 absolutely 🔥

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