Des Hymnagistes

From Codhill Press, H. R. Stoneback's VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING

2011-09-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

Des Hymnagistes poet H. R. Stoneback has recently published VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING (Codhill Press). Please visit their website for more information or to order, please visit Amazon.com.

Praise for VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING:

--"VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING is a funny, tragic, wonderful book . . . Stoneback writes always with good humor and great passion--about Paris, about love, about grief and joy, about the gains and losses of more than half a century gone."
Alex Andriesse Shakespeare, writer, Boston College

--"A virtuosic synthesis of disparate forms and haunting formulations, VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING is 'life-writing' of a wholly new and overwhelming kind, 'written' in the fullest sense and born of a life lived with passionate intensity."
William Bedford Clark, poet-critic, Texas A&M University

--"H. R. Stoneback's VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING . . . [is] an epic account of roots and sources, and it's close to the bone, intimate beyond words, stirring. Love is at the center of this book: romantic love, love of music, and love as a driving (and saving) force."
William Boyle, writer, University of Mississippi

--"There are only a few voices I can listen to and feel the way I ought to feel in church. H. R. Stoneback's VOICES OF WOMEN SINGING captures some of those voices . . . These are sacred songs; these are eternal poems. Listen slowly with infinite love and compassion."
Matthew Nickel, poet-editor, University of Louisiana

And, from the back cover of VOICES, among a host of laudatory comments from leading writers about Stoneback's recent volumes of poetry, a few excerpts:

--"[Stoneback's CAFE MILLENNIUM] performs an act of verbal hypnosis on its reader."
Billy Collins, Poet Laureate

--"These poems [SINGING THE SPRINGS] spring and sing right out of the earth . . .I hug these songs to my heart."
Catherine Aldington, French poet-translator, Imagist

--"The poem [HOMAGE: A LETTER TO ROBERT PENN WARREN] is a delight, a great read, a rumble of energy all the way through . . . the rhythmic roll and strut."

Dave Smith, poet, editor THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, Coleman Professor of Poetry, Johns Hopkins

--"What I love about Stoneback's poetry is that it makes you love poetry . . . He's a bard, celebratory and rhythmical, with an unmistakable voice and he gets and begets the numinous nature of poiesis."
Allen Josephs, writer, University of West Florida

--[Stoneback is a] Postmodern modernist extraordinaire!"
John R. O. Gery, poet, Director Ezra Pound Center for Literature

[On HEMINGWAY"S PARIS: OUR PARIS?]

--"Stoneback's lyrical prose takes the reader inside the soul of Hemingway's Paris to reveal tantalizing secrets."
A.E. Hotchner, writer, Hemingway colleague, author of the classic PAPA HEMINGWAY

--"Stoneback's evocation of Hemingway's Paris is as close as I have come to reliving those Paris days in the company of Ernest Hemingway."
Valerie Hemingway, writer

From Penn's Store to the World

2011-03-10T17:31:00.001-08:00

From Penn’s Store to the World: An Anthology of Poems

98 pp.
Edited by H. R. Stoneback
with Amanda Boyle and Brad McDuffie
Des Hymnagistes Press 2011
$20

In the spring of 2010 a great flood inundated Penn’s Store, which is located near Gravel Switch, Kentucky. The old country store is situated at the edge of the tobacco and corn bottomlands, and to the uninformed eye of the casual passerby the store might appear to be just another ramshackle structure in a dying agrarian community. But this store is a historic landmark, said to be America’s oldest country store run by the same family—since at least the 1840s. The Penn family that still runs the store is related to the great Kentucky writer, Robert Penn Warren. It has since become a place for poetry and song gatherings, and for over a decade the location of the annual Kentucky Writers Day celebration every April. This is an important landmark of Song and Story, Ballad and Poetry, in a numinous place redolent with a sense of the past.

Because of the flood, H. R. Stoneback organized a Benefit in November 2010 to raise money to help the damaged store. A direct result of the Benefit was the publication of a substantial volume entitled From Penn’s Store to the World: An Anthology of Poems. All funds raised by the benefit went directly to Penn’s Store as a gift. (And any profits made by the book will also go to benefit the Store.) This book contains 50 poems—some written by well-known poets of national reputation, some by previously unknown poets who wanted to help the cause. And the poets are not just from Kentucky, but from numerous states and countries. It is the hope of all poets who participated that Penn’s Store will survive.

W. H. Auden was not the first or the last to say that poetry makes nothing happen. We beg to differ: poetry can make things happen, especially when words are anchored in the spirit of human community and deeds of concrete compassion. In this crusade to save Penn’s Store words were deeds, poems were cash.

If you would like to purchase a copy of From Penn’s Store to the World: An Anthology of Poems and help Penn’s Store, please make your check payable to “H. R. Stoneback.” Also include how many books you would like and where the books should be sent. Include $4 shipping and handling and mail to:

H. R. Stoneback
Department of English
SUNY New Paltz
1 Hawk Drive
New Paltz, NY 12561

Review of McDuffie's book

2010-09-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

A very favorable review of Brad McDuffie's And The West Was Not So Far Away has been published by fellow hymnagistes Alex Andriesse Shakespeare at Rattle. Please read the review here

Anyone interested in purchasing McDuffie's book of poems (or any other book by Des Hymnagistes Press) should contact deshymnagistes@gmail.com.

New Books Available from Des Hymnagistes Press

2010-05-24T01:27:00.000-07:00

See Press Release below re: release of new volume of poetry Des Hymnagistes: An Anthology. This book had its American debut at the Kentucky Writers Day celebration in late April; the world premiere will take place at Brunnenburg Castle in Italy in June, with readings by many of the poets included in the volume (e.g., descendants of the original Imagists; the new book, of course, resonates with the landmark 1914 volume of Imagist poetry--Des Imagistes: An Anthology.)

Des Hymnagistes: An Anthology
Edited by Matthew Nickel & H. R. Stoneback

Paperback (108 pages): $20 includes S&H
Hardback (108 pages): $40 includes S&H

Please make check payable to H. R. Stoneback and send to:

H. R. Stoneback
Department of English
SUNY-New Paltz
New Paltz, NY 12561

Also newly available from Des Hymnagistes Press:

1) Matthew Nickel, ed. Knowledge Carried to the Heart: A Festschrift for H. R. Stoneback (softbound 60 pages)--$15 (plus $2 shipping)

If you would like to order Knowledge Carried to the Heart, please fill out check payable to Matthew Nickel, indicate how many books you would like, and send to:

Matthew Nickel
PO BOX 41271
Lafayette, LA 70504

2) H. R. Stoneback, Fitzgerald Variations (poems; softbound 41 pages)--$12 (plus $2 shipping). To purchase Fitzgerald Variations please make check payable to H. R. Stoneback, indicate how many you would like, and send to:

H. R. Stoneback
Department of English
SUNY-New Paltz
New Paltz, NY 12561

American Premiere of Des Hymnagistes: An Anthology

2010-04-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Kentucky Writers Day Celebration at Historic Penn's Store will feature the American Premiere of the new poetry volume Des Hymnagistes: An Anthology (Des Hymnagistes Press, 2010). The book will have its World Premiere and formal release celebration in June at Brunnenburg Castle in Italy, former home of Ezra Pound and now the residence of his daughter Mary de Rachewiltz. The Des Hymnagistes volume resonates with Pound's landmark Des Imagistes: An Anthology (1914). Inspired by Imagism, filtered through a century of literary history and transformed by influences such as hymns and country songs, Hymnagism is a worldwide movement with deep Kentucky roots--over the past decade, for example, many Hymnagistes poets have read their works at Kentucky Writers Day Celebrations. This new volume includes poems by descendants of the original Imagists (e.g. Pound's daughter Mary de Rachewiltz and Richard Aldington's daughter Catherine Aldington),Valerie Hemingway, as well as the work of the well-known Kentucky poet H. R. Stoneback and other rising young Hymnagiste poets. Along with Stoneback, several other contributors to the volume--A.B., William Boyle, Brad McDuffie, Matthew Nickel, Alex Shakespeare--will read at the 2010 Kentucky Writers Day, Sunday, April 25th at 2 PM, at Penn's Store. All of these Hymnagiste poets will be in Kentucky for their annual pilgrimage to the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Conference at St. Catharine College in Springfield (April 24-26). And they claim Roberts, Kentucky's great novelist, as an Imagiste, a proto-Hymnagiste.

The American Premiere and Hymnagiste Readings are scheduled for 2:00pm until 3:30pm, April 25 during the 2010 KENTUCKY WRITERS DAY CELEBRATIONS at Historic Penn's Store. Penn's Store is located at 257 Penn's Store Road, off KY HWY 243 3 miles SE of Gravel Switch, Kentucky.

From the Kentucky Literary Newsletter and Kentucky Writers Day Press release, April 1, 2010.

Coming Soon!

2010-03-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Des Hymnagistes Press is hard at work on a new Anthology to be available soon. Please check back for updates in the coming weeks. We still have available copies for sale of Brad McDuffie's And the West Was Not So Far Away, H. R. Stoneback's Amazing-Grace-Wheel-Chair-Jumpshot-Jesus-Love-Poems, and the anthology edited by Matthew Nickel, Illumination & Praise: Poems for Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Kentucky. Please contact Des Hymnagistes Press at deshymnagistes@gmail.com for questions and more information.

And The West Was Not So Far Away

2009-10-02T08:59:00.001-07:00

Now Available From Des Hymnagistes Press

And The West Was Not So Far Away
Brad McDuffie

Des Hymnagistes Press
ISBN 978-0-9822693-2-9
$12 (plus $2 S&H)

To order please make check payable to "Brad McDuffie":
$12 (plus $2 S&H) and mail to:

Brad McDuffie
Nyack College
1 South Blvd
Nyack, NY 10960

from McDuffie's "A Meditation on my First Tour de France"

Our tour ends down the Rue Saint-Jacques.
We spend l’heure verte at the Dome,
and watch feux d’artifice over the Seine;
as the moon rises over Notre-Dame,
we raise our glasses to Lance.
On the last night we dine at L’Écurie
the owner brings us absinthe
he apologizes for the wait, welcomes
our platoon like the brothers he lost at Reims.
He raises his glass, looks you in the eye, salutes.

You’ve carried me into high country,
and I’ve fixed my eyes on the road ahead,
where the light steadies beyond the Panthéon,
seeing the place where everything begins.

Praise for McDuffie's And The West Was Not So Far Away:

Brad McDuffie's poems come from the source of all that is good. I haven't been moved by a book of poems in this way since Erin Rourke's Three Bullets and a Magic Bean. Eat these poems. Drink them. Live off of them for years in the wilderness. They are about moments of grace, moments of doubt, and--above all--moments of intense communion. Teach these poems to students! Bring them to courthouses! Pay parking tickets with these poems! Defy your elders, using only these poems as evidence of your right to do what you want! Write letters to your leaders and quote McDuffie! Believe me, children: poetry's gone to the shithouse. You want to help? You want to make a contribution? Buy McDuffie's book, and don't look back.

--Francis Eamon Boyle, author of Raised Hearts Hailing

McDuffie's poems are beautiful, straight, and true. I read so much poetry where the emotion--the real emotion--has been wrung out, but McDuffie knows how to keep it in and use it to its full potential. His poems work the middle ground between Townes Van Zandt and Robert Lowell, Jason Molina and Donald Junkins, Bob Dylan and H. R. Stoneback. At the beginning of one section, McDuffie quotes John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats: "But we are not as far west as you suppose we are," fully realizing the idea of the west that threads its way through these pages. Interestingly enough, The Mountain Goats have a new album out simultaneously with McDuffie's book. In "Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace," Darnielle sings: "When I emerge I find my car like a cathedral in a dream of the future." This line gets at the overall feeling of McDuffie's book: Reading it, you feel like you're inside of something big, a cathedral maybe, a place where prayer and miracles still matter.

--William Boyle, University of Mississippi

Happy Birthday

2009-09-25T10:32:00.001-07:00

Sparrow.

Amazing-Grace-Wheelchair-Jumpshot-Jesus-Love-Poems

2008-12-31T07:35:00.000-08:00

Now available from Des Hymnagistes Press:

Amazing-Grace-Wheelchair-Jumpshot-Jesus-Love-Poems
H. R. Stoneback

172 pp.
Des Hymnagistes Press
ISBN 978-0-9822693-0-5
$20 (plus $2 S&H)

To order, please make check payable to "Matthew Nickel": $20 (plus $2 S&H) and mail to :
Matthew Nickel
Des Hymnagistes Press
P. O. Box 41271
Lafayette, LA 70504

"Postmodern modernist extraordinaire!"
--John R. O. Gery, Director Ezra Pound Center for Literature (Davenport's Version, American Ghost/Americki Duh and numerous other books)

What I love about Stoneback's poetry is that it makes you love poetry. It is often very accomplished poetry, but Stoney's double gift for narrative and clarity encourage you to read it with the relish and abandon you would bring to finely honed prose. At the same time he knows--as Alfred Kazin said to me one afternoon, walking the miracle sands of Pensacola Beach--that all great poetry is atavistic. Stoney's atavisms--from the chthonic to the ludic, from the tellurian to the celestial--mourn for all that's missing in the vast charnel house of modern culture. He's a bard, celebratory and rhythmical, with an unmistakable voice and he gets and begets the numinous nature of poiesis.
--Allen Josephs, University of West Florida,White Wall of Spain: The Mysteries of Andalusian Culture, Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida: The Saga of Cesar Rincon, and numerous other books.

H.R. Stoneback's superb new collection of poems speaks to such vital fundamentals as love, hope, loss, redemption and renewal as these things are transfigured through Faith. In these eloquent and deeply personal pieces, Stoneback works with the precision of a virtuoso craftsman to devise new songs with which to speak ancient truths, fomenting a radical new rubric of vision and speech while at the same time retaining the best of oral and written tradition in the English language. Stoneback's landscapes and rivers and people are sacred. So are his words about them.
--Edward J. Renehan Jr., musician, writer (John Burroughs: An American Naturalist, The Kennedy's at War: 1937-1945, Dark Genius of Wallstreet: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons, Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and numerous other books)

H. R. Stoneback's new collection contributes another memorable chapter of story and verse to his earlier works, Cafe Millennium & Other Poems and Singing the Springs. These hymnagiste poems rollick between celebratory song and heartbreaking elegy, between the wild weirdness of the 1960s and the weirder wildness of this new century—and perhaps one of the rarest qualities in contemporary poetry, they are capable of communicating a sense of authentic joy.
In Stoneback's hands, autobiography becomes something universal; the work of mourning is shared, and sweetness is confided. Perhaps the most striking piece in a striking collection is the "found poem" Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono, which the poet wrote in Nashville, 1965 about:
how we lived in Hawai'i when we
were twenty-five how we got there what we
did there and how we came the long road home
never much money but always with song
luck and hope and hunger when we were young
After reading this poem, after reading all the poems of Amazing-Grace, we too have traveled with the poet on a long road home. And it is a marvelous ride.
--Alex Andriesse Shakespeare, Boston College

H.R. Stoneback's Amazing-Grace-Wheelchair-Jumpshot-Jesus-Love-Poems contains new (and old) poems that are about victory and precision, overcoming and redemption, love and lonesomeness, family and faith. These poems often draw from hymns, carrying the reader to the good places Stoneback has known. Above all, though, Stoneback instructs, teaching us how to live well and truly in the world.
--William Boyle, University of Mississippi

These poems have an immediacy to them, what Fitzgerald called "romantic readiness," they defy the static claustrophobia of academic poems, they are alive, they breathe with place and history, and they impart these journeys to the reader, the pilgrim. These are lasting poems, they endure, they teach, they carry the reader along traces both common and transcendent, blurring the lines of demarcation because they live the values. As Stoneback writes in "Travel Rites and Writing":
The spirit of place does not drink with tourists . . .
You have to live there,
and once you have, you do not want to write about it,
for all such writing is betrayal, unless it is poetry or fiction.
And we all know how dangerous those countries are.
--Brad McDuffie, Nyack College

Stoneback's new book of poems is a hymnagiste narrative tour de force, moving the reader into a tight complicity of darkness and light, wheeling in amazing grace toward "the still point of the turning world." In "Hear That Train: Elegy Written in a Country Music Churchyard (For Johnny Cash)" and "Victory in Jesus: Meditations on an Old Hymn" Stoneback leads us down that old road of sin, illuminating moments that bind our souls in salvation through old hymns and country songs. In his epic "Hawai'i 1965" sequence and in poems for Sparrow, the reader learns how deep love and song are often the only ways of survival in life's darkest hours. And in the final section "Walking (with Pipes & Drum)," through the exactitude of line and form, after a long uphill wheelchair ramp, Stoneback carries us into the refining fires of renewed hope and faith. Through these poems and their voices, poems and songs that read and sing like prayers, we learn how to live each day
in charity with small things, and how to find our way back after each dark night to that old redemption story.
--Matthew Nickel, University of Louisiana—Lafayette

Recent Response from Hawaii:
H. R. Stoneback is a really down to earth man. He is a down to earth man with a bohemian spirit. I told him I was from Florida. He thought I was a Polynesian because of the lei I was wearing. I got him to autograph my program book and to a photo with him. I wanted to purchase his book of poems titled “Amazing grace wheelchair jump start Jesus poems”. He was a singer in his beatnik days in Waikiki when the locals called it the jungle. He was a great speaker.
--Hugeaux, Artist/Photographer (www.hugeaux.com)

***And now available from Codhill Press, H. R. Stoneback's Hurricane Hymn & Other Poems (www.codhill.com)

Des Hymnagistes in New Orleans

2008-12-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

The Maple Leaf Poetry Reading Series

(oldest poetry reading series in the South)

Presents Featured Reader

H. R. Stoneback

author of Hurricane Hymn & Other Poems,
Amazing-Grace-Wheelchair-Jumpshot-Jesus-Love-Poems
and numerous other volumes

Opening readers
William Boyle & Matthew Nickel

Introduction of H. R. Stoneback by William Boyle and Matthew Nickel

SUNDAY
January 18, 2009
3 - 5 pm

The Maple Leaf Bar
***8316 Oak Street***
New Orleans
504-866-9359

Florida English and other updates

2008-10-14T19:32:00.000-07:00

Florida English has recently published a special Imagist Issue now available on their website. Much in this volume was presented at the First Imagist Conference held in Brunnenburg Castle, Dorf Tirol, 2007. Several Hymnagistes presented on the imagist poets, and several poems by hymnagistes are included within this great volume.

There have also been recent reports of Hymnagistes in the north country around Lake Placid and throughout the Adirondacks. It seems they have already taken the Olympic Ski Jump, the Bob-Sled Run, and all of SUNY Plattsburg.

New reports coming in daily claim that there will be Hymnagistes at this year's SAMLA conference in Louisville, KY. If you're in town, stop by November 7-9, 2008 (see SAMLA Convetion Website for more information). I hear Des Hymnagistes are taking over the conference and there will be several poetry readings, presentations, and the normal festivities.

September 25, 2008

2008-09-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Sparrow

Elizabeth Madox Roberts: Essays of Discovery and Recovery

2008-07-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Madox Roberts: Essays of Discovery and Recovery

Edited by H. R. Stoneback, Nicole Camastra, and Steven Florczyk

"This volume is the second of the two books devoted to Elizabeth Madox Roberts to be published in the same year--annus mirabilis! Before the appearance of these two volumes, more than four decades had elapsed since the last book-length critical study of Roberts was published. In many ways, this book serves as a companion piece to its immediate predecessor, Elizabeth Madox Roberts: Essays of Reassessment and Reclamation (edited by H. R. Stoneback and Steven Florczyk). We will not repeat what was said in the introduction to that volume regarding the history of the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society, from whose annual conferences most of the essays in the present study emanate. It will suffice here to note that the publication of both these landmark volumes signals the celebration, in 2008, of the tenth anniversary of the Roberts Society." (from the Introduction)

This new book of critical essays on Elizabeth Madox Roberts is available for sale at $20 (includes shipping and handling). Included in this book is new fiction by Roberts (fragments from Sallie May, "The Prophet" and notes On Poetry), and critical essays by H. R. Stoneback, William H. Slavick, Wade Hall, Vicki Barker, William Boyle, Nicole Camastra, Damian Carpenter, Steven Florczyk, Angela Green, Tina Iraca, Emily Kane, Brad McDuffie, Jennings Mace, Gregg Neikirk, Matthew Nickel, Erin Presley, Katy Shores, Nicole Boucher Spottke and Nicole Valentino, James Stamant, John Weatherford, and Gerald Preher.

Anyone interested in purchasing a copy can contact deshymnagistes@gmail.com.

2008-05-29T08:06:00.000-07:00

Requiescat in Pace

Sparrow

Jane Arden Stoneback

HIGHLAND, NY - Sparrow - Jane Arden Stoneback - singer/songwriter of international reputation, paragon of grit and grace, wit and will, during her long fight with lung cancer and all her life, passed away May 25 at Cumberland County Hospital in Kentucky. Born in Carter County, in the eastern Kentucky hill-country, daughter of Alice and Richard Hillman, she made her home in the Hudson Valley for the past four decades. Before moving to Highland in 1969, she lived in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, New Orleans, South Jersey, and Tennessee. She also lived and traveled extensively abroad, especially in France and China. She studied at Vanderbilt University, the University of Paris and Peking University. She taught and tutored English language students and lectured on folksong in France and China. Other work experience included a year in Hawaii as Executive Assistant to the President of one of the largest Pacific Rim firms, three years in Nashville as national troubleshooter for General Electric, and many years in the emergency room admissions department of Benedictine Hospital in Kingston. She was also a writer who published essays, poems, and songs. During a forty-five year singing career as the better half of the duo "Stoney & Sparrow", she achieved national and international renown as a singer through her powerful and nuanced performances of folk, country and gospel songs as well as her own compositions. She made concert tours and television and radio appearances throughout Asia, Europe, and North America under the auspices of the British Council, the Fulbright Program, USIA (the US State Department), and many other cultural organizations and institutions. She performed in Austria, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and other countries, as well in most of the fifty states and throughout the Caribbean. In 1984, she sang all over China and several albums featuring her singing were major hit recordings there - said to be the first million-selling records by an American in China. In 2006 a 2CD album, "Stoney & Sparrow: Songs of Place 1962-2006", was released (recorded live in New Paltz). In 2007, another album, "Overcoming: Live in Alabama, China, and the Hudson Valley" was released, featuring earlier concert performances and dedicated to the Hope Lodge in Nashville, where cancer patients at the Vanderbilt Medical Center reside during treatment. Closer to home, Sparrow was wellknown for her performances in the Hudson Valley, especially at SUNY New Paltz, where she performed annually for many years. The world that she made in her singing was inseparable from her role as gracious host and adoptive mother to the extended family of generations of SUNY New Paltz students that she welcomed to her home, their home. This community, this communion of students and teachers, poets and writers, salutes her as muse: "Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."(Proverbs 31:28) She is survived by her husband of forty-six years, H.R.("Stoney" - Distinguished Professor of English at SUNY New Paltz); her son, Rick (CEO of the Cumberland County Hospital in Kentucky) and his wife, Robin; her son, Gregg(Professor of English at Westfield State College in Massachusetts) and his wife, Nancy; and her four grandchildren, Adam and Lee(Westfield, MA) and Rachel and Richard(Marrowbone, KY). Visitation will be held Friday, May 30, 2008, 10-11:30am at the Michael Torsone Memorial Funeral Home, Inc., 38 Main St., Highland, NY. A funeral mass will be held 12:30pm following visitation at the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Rev. Peter J. Vianney celebrating the mass. Burial will follow in the Ascension Church Cemetery, West Park, NY. For directions, please visit www.torsonememorial.com.

Illumination & Praise: Poems for Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Kentucky

2008-04-23T09:58:00.001-07:00

Des Hymnagistes Press is proud to announce its most recent publication of Illumination & Praise: Poems for Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Kentucky. This volume, edited by Matthew Nickel, contains poets: H. R. Stoneback, Charlie Hughes, Ron Whitehead, Charles Semones, Lynn Behrendt, Ed Butler, William Boyle, Alex Andriesse Shakespeare, Brad McDuffie, James Stamant, Gregg Neikirk, Michael Beilfuss, Damian Carpenter, Steven Florczyk, and Matthew Nickel. This past weekend at Penn's Store outside Gravel Switch, KY, the Elizabeth Madox Roberts Society members included in the book read their poems in dedication to the writer and her native soil of Kentucky. There are still a few copies available for sale (1 book for $12 or 2 books for $20). Please contact deshymnagistes@gmail.com for further information.

Countries of the Heart for Stoney & Sparrow

2008-03-27T15:12:00.001-07:00

Countries of the Heart for Stoney & Sparrow, edited by Matthew Nickel, was published in July 2007 by Mother-River-Flows-Two-Ways Press, a division of Des Hymnagistes Press. The book is a collection of poems in dedication to H. R. and Sparrow Stoneback, and several of the poets included in this volume presented the book and their poems to the Stonebacks on Bastille Day 2007. Poets included are Donald Junkins, Edward J. Renehan Jr., Catherine Aldington, Alex Andriesse, Goretti Vianney-Benca, Brad McDuffie, Edward Butler, Robert Lewis, Damian Carpenter, Jenica Lyons, Eric Forbeaux, Bob Waugh, Dan Kempton, Richard Davison, James Stamant, Allen Josephs, Steve Florczyk, Gregg Neikirk, Matthew Nickel, and William Boyle. If you have not gotten a copy of the book or you would like another copy, please send me an email at deshymnagistes@gmail.com. Price for 1 book is $12 or 2 books for $20 (prices include shipping).

What Thou Lovest Well Remains

2008-03-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

Des Hymnagistes Press published a volume of poetry for Ezra Pound and Pound's daughter Mary de Rachewiltz in 2007: What Thou Lovest Well Remains: Poems c/o Brunnenburg Castle, edited by H. R. Stoneback. Poets included in this volume are: Catherine Aldington, Richard Aldington, Lynn Behrendt, William Boyle, Michael Copp, James Finn Cotter, John R. O. Gery, Donald R. Johnson, Donald Junkins, Daniel Kempton, Ian McNiven, Brad McDuffie, Matthew Nickel, Biljana Obradovic, Alex Andriesse Shakespeare, John Patrick Travis, and Emily Mitchell Wallace. There are still copies available for sale at $12 (includes shipping). If you are interested in purchasing a copy, please send an email to deshymnagistes@gmail.com.

Welcome

2008-03-19T20:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Des Hymnagistes Press. We are a group of poets and we publish books. We will be posting publication information and important notifications on this site. There have been several books published under the Des Hymnagistes name (and other sub-divisions of the company, i.e., Mother-River-Flows-Two-Ways Press), and information will be posted in time regarding how to buy copies of previously available books.

Our newest book is a festschrift edited by Matthew Nickel: Illumination & Praise: Poems for Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Kentucky. We are hoping to have the book available for sale at Kentucky Writers Day this April 20, 2008 at Penn's Store near Gravel Switch, KY. Several contributing poets will be there to read poems. We hope to see you there.