Places We Return To: A Celebration of Twenty Years Publishing Fine Literature by CavanKerry Press, 2000-2020

by Joan Cusack Handler (Editor), Kevin Carey (Contribution by), January Gill O'Neil (Contribution by), Baron Wormser (Contribution by), Ross Gay (Contribution by)

Overview

Founded twenty years ago by poet, memoirist, and clinical psychologist Joan Cusack Handler, CavanKerry Press has published fine literary work by established and emerging writers focused on the pursuit of understanding what it means to be human through insightful, accessible writing. This unique collection looks back at CavanKerry's first two decades with excerpts from each of the one hundred books in its publishing catalog, featuring poems and memoirs that capture the heart of living—through life's joys, illnesses, and moments of both gratitude and challenge.

This collection features work by renowned writers of contemporary poetry and memoir such as David Cho, Robert Cording, Ross Gay, John Haines, Joan Cusack Handler, Marcus Jackson, Gray Jacobik, January Gill O’Neil, Jack Ridl, Mary Ruefle, Maureen Seaton, Jack Wiler, Baron Wormser, and many others. Places We Return To is the perfect introduction to CavanKerry’s catalog, representing the deeply resonant writing for which the Press is known. Several authors in the CavanKerry library have gone on to find acclaim as poets laureate, Pushcart recipients, and finalists in national prizes. Places We Return To is a collection of work of the highest caliber.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780967885636
Publisher:	CavanKerry Press
Publication date:	01/18/2021
Edition description:	New edition
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	824,342
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Joan Cusack Handler is the founder of CavanKerry Press. She is a poet, memoirist, and a psychologist in clinical practice. She is the author of four books, most recently, Orphans. Gabriel Cleveland is the managing editor for CavanKerry Press. He is a poet and fiction writer and mental health advocate, working to raise awareness, visibility, and money for psychological and psychosocial issues.

Table of Contents

Joan Cusack Handler - Foreword
Susan Jackson - Homage to My Mother
Editors’ Note

Howard Levy - Jackson, Mississippi, 1966 - 1
Karen Chase - The Swim - 2
Peggy Penn - may evening - 3
Judith Emlyn Johnson - From Re/Membering the Goddess: Carolyn Kizer and the Poetics of Generosity - 4
Donald Hall - The Breath of Parted Lips: Voices from the Robert Frost Place, Volume I, Foreword - 6
Robert Cording - Last Things - 8
Martin Mooney - The General - 9
Mary Ruefle - The Pedant’s Discourse - 10
Moyra Donaldson - Exile - 11
Sondra Gash - Bread and Roses (Morris) - 13
Sherry Fairchok - Near Rats and the Devil - 15
Steven B Rogers - From Stories I Have Listened To - 16
Kenneth Rosen - The Alligator’s Hum - 18
Joan Cusack Handler - Gravy - 19
Christopher Matthews - Child and Mother - 20
Eloise Bruce - The Solid Body - 21
Celia Bland - Maternity - 22
Georgianna Orsini - Parts of Speech - 23
Sydney Lea - From Democracy, the Spirit, and Poetic Passion - 24
Catherine Doty - “For May Is the Month of Our Mother” - 26
Joan Seliger Sidney - Laps - 28
Elizabeth Hall Hutner - Prayer - 30
Christian Barter - The Singers I Prefer - 31
Laurie Lamon - When You Tell Me - 32
Andrea Carter Brown - Your Dream - 33
Robert Cording - The Weeper - 34
Richard Jeffrey Newman - After Drought - 35
Jack Wiler - New Year’s Eve - 36
Ross Gay - Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 a.m. - 37
Robert Seder - From To the Marrow - 38
Mark Nepo - The Edge - 39
Susan Jackson - The Man Who Could Not Talk about the War - 41
Joseph O Legaspi - Imago - 42
Christine Korfhage - Picture Perfect - 44
Teresa Carson - Autopsy Report - 45
Karen Chase - The Book of Crime - 47
Baron Wormser - From Gregory Corso, b 1930 - 48
Sam Cornish - Elegy - 49
Joan Cusack Handler - Hands - 50
Phoebe Sparrow Wagner - My Mother Was Medea - 51
Bhisham Bherwani - CANT / DESCANT - 52
Laurie Lamon - Anne Frank Exhibit - 53
Jack Ridl - At Fifty - 54
Nin Andrews - Bathing in Your Brother’s Bathwater - 55
January Gill O’Neil - Early Memory - 56
Susan Jackson - Waiting - 57
John Haines - From Readings from an Alaskan Journal - 59
Marie Lawson Fiala - From Mirror, Mirror - 61
Dawn Potter - Heavy Metal - 63
Jack Wiler - Divina Is Divina - 64
Robert Cording - Without End - 66
Gray Jacobik - 18 - 67
Baron Wormser - Travel - 68
David S Cho - Night Sessions - 69
Marcus Jackson - Kiss - 71
Peggy Penn - Cello Suite - 73
Judith Hannan - From Motherhood Exaggerated - 75
Carole Stone - Running Boards - 76
Kevin Carey - Memory Boys - 77
Paola Corso - From Step by Step with the Laundress - 78
Michael Miller - Scars - 79
Joan Cusack Handler - Only Water and No People - 80
Rachel Hadas - From The Waiting Room Reader, Volume II, Editor’s Note - 81
Wanda S Praisner - Portrait of a Young Man - 83
Shira Dentz - Circumflex - 84
Sarah Bracey White - From Primary Lessons - 85
Adriana Páramo - From Mariquita - 87
Dawn Potter - Home - 88
Howard Levy - The Steam of Tea - 89
David Keller - Classified - 91
Teresa Carson - Fitted Sheets - 92
Annie Boutelle - Alternative - 93
January Gill O’Neil - Zebra 94
Loren Graham - Episode of the Encyclopedia Salesman - 95
Brent Newsom - January 2009: For Anthony - 96
Pam Bernard - From Great Divide - 98
Baron Wormser - Leaving - 99
Robert Cording - Angel - 100
Robin Silbergleid - An Open Letter to Frida Kahlo - 101
Joan Cusack Handler - From Inoperable - 102
Sandra M Castillo - Photograph - 103
Donald Platt - This Happened - 104
Kevin Carey - Reading to My Kids - 105
Jeanne Marie Beaumont - Portrait with Closed Eyes - 106
Christopher Bursk - A Car Stops and a Door Opens - 107
Tina Kelley - Yawp - 108
Nin Andrews - God’s Mistake (Gil) - 109
Joseph O Legaspi - Chelsea Piers - 110
Cindy Veach - How a Community of Women - 111
Danny Shot - Allyson, - 112
Sarah Sousa - To the Comedian Who Called Thelma and Louise Two White Heifers - 113
Judith Sornberger - This Autumn Morning Arrays Itself - 114
Harriet Levin - Smoke - 115
January Gill O’Neil - Hoodie - 116
Maureen Seaton - Sweet World - 117
Margo Taft Stever - Splitting Wood - 118
Cati Porter - Taking My Time - 120
Robert Cording - After - 121
Kari O’Driscoll - From By Heart - 122
Gray Jacobik - 20 - 124
Fred Shaw - Argot - 125
Kevin Carey - Set in Stone - 127
Tina Kelley - A Dozen Secrets from God - 128
Frannie Lindsay - Bead - 129


Gratitudes
CavanKerry Press Mission Statement
CavanKerry Press Author Bios
CavanKerry’s Books

Editorial Reviews

"The poets of CavanKerry Press tap your shoulder and invite you into their living room. You can sit here, and warm your hands on the different variants of what happens to humans, poem by poem, page by page, book by book, year by year. The best poems know how to catch experience and sing it true, and this book is filled with nothing but best poems. These gathered voices-old, young, rich, not so rich, urban and rural, love verse and they love the world. The house CavanKerry builds in this anthology suits its mission to a T; there are rooms available for all of us to wander. Think of our world. Now, think of our world without poetry. Now, open this book."

cofounder of Cave Canem Cornelius Eady

"Just the way CavanKerry Press joyfully merges two Irish counties for its name, so its philosophy jubilantly combines Passion with Craft. Places We Return To is a treasure chest retrospective featuring a single selection from each CavanKerry book published in the last two decades. Valuing emotion and all its secret sources, as well as those bursts of interior song that surprise us when we reach a wellspring, CavanKerry prizes the personal voice—knowing what a radical act that can be, and also knowing it’s the way to the universal. That’s all here in this celebratory anthology, produced with the stunning design that has distinguished the press from a zygote of an idea to its full, expansive, generous presence today. There’s another important fusing, too: each poet here became part of a CavanKerry family of authors, the splendid result of voice, line, and design that makes marvels of their books."

Molly Peacock

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