News Release

EVENT NEWS / February 9, 2009

Boise State University's Ahsahta Press Releases New Works by Kathleen Jesme, Barbara Maloutas

Ahsahta Press, the poetry press at Boise State University, recently released two new titles: “The Plum-Stone Game” by Kathleen Jesme and “the whole Marie” by Barbara Maloutas.

“The Plum-Stone Game” is Jesme’s third collection of poetry. Jesme asks what happens if the ordinary ways of knowing are taken away — if one is suddenly unable to see or hear or has been stripped of the familiar past. What begins to show through when absence (or darkness) creates a different inner landscape? In five distinct but interconnected poem cycles, Jesme excavates these inner landscapes and discovers word artifacts to reveal new directions to dig, always bringing the reader somewhere unexpected. Publisher’s Weekly wrote in a review of “The Plum-Stone Game” that “Jesme focuses on and illuminates small experiences. Many of the poems are thick with aesthetic revelry … their cumulative effect can be mesmerizing.”

Maloutas’ “the whole Marie” was selected for Ahsahta’s 2008 Sawtooth Poetry Prize. C.D. Wright, the contest judge, wrote, “A nexus of associations, psychic and social, binds olive groves to the pretext of a headache to the thinnest dresses. A record of solitary activity, mental and physical, disrupts a life in a context where a succession of bookkeepers is recalled, a car is towed, an easement is sought, and tourists are studied, because sooner or later, one is one. Patient, curious, ranging, ‘the whole Marie’ has a personality. And it is artifactual. And wondrous. Its ambiguities are offset by its concretions. Vice versa. She carries her ‘one time camera.’ Finally, the breath is her guide.”

Learn more about the books and purchase them through the Ahsahta Press Web site: http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu. Ahsahta Press, an all‑poetry imprint at Boise State University, has been publishing since 1974. The name “Ahsahta” comes from the Mandan word for a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and was first recorded during the Lewis and Clark expedition. Ahsahta Press has produced volumes by poets such as Graham Foust, Linda Dyer, Noah Eli Gordon, Dan Beachy-Quick, Lisa Fishman, Lance Phillips, Heather Sellers, Sandra Alcosser, David Baker, Linda Bierds and Wyn Cooper.

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Media Contact: Julie Hahn, University Communications, (208) 426-5540, juliehahn@boisestate.edu

Boise State University is “The New U Rising” with record student enrollment, new academic buildings, additional degree programs and a growing research agenda. Learn more at www.boisestate.edu.
 

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Last reviewed on Monday, February 09, 2009