Bob Holman and Marjorie Tesser Editors

Bowery Books has published essential anthologies, such as Bowery Women: Poems and Estamos Aquí, poems by Migrant Farmworkers, as well as works by unique poets like Taylor Mead, the octogenarian Andy Warhol intimate who appeared in the film Coffee and Cigarettes, to Poez, a performing street poet. Forthcoming is the new Bowery Voices series, including Black Cracker by Celena Glenn and Body of Water by Janet Hamill, with photographs by Patti Smith, both in fall 2008, and Touch by Cynthia Kraman in spring 2009. Bowery Books is is a member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

A different kind of poetry book
Bowery Women: Poems

Click here for info on Bowery Women

What is your signature poem? This question was posed to 76 women poets who have delighted, inspired, and shocked audiences at New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club. And so was born Bowery Women: Poems, an extraordinary anthology including such national treasures as Anne Waldman, Ana Castillo, Sapphire, Jessica Hagedorn, Marie Ponsot, and Marie Howe, former Broadway and HBO Def Jam poets like Ishle Yi Park and Suheir Hammad, slam winners, plus a crowd of new talents.

A Simple Country Girl

It’s been twenty five years since Mead’s last book and A Simple Country Girl demonstrates what we’ve been missing in the interim. “If he had decided to live in Paris instead of New York, they’d have built several monuments to Taylor Mead a long time ago” - Gary Indiana. In a career that’s spanned nearly 60 years, Taylor’s won roughly equal renown as a poet and an actor. His previous books include Son of Andy Warhol: Excerpts from the Anonymous Diary of A New York Youth Taylor Mead (1986). And see if you can quote someone notable - besides Indiana - raving about one of them. Maybe Warhol said something cool]. The poet remains in top form at age 80. Consider this gem from A Simple Country Girl –

Math

I think
my three hour memory
is (sort of) normal
for a silly seventy-eight
year old
who’s slept half his life
away
so I am only thirty-two

Taylor’s movie credits include innumerable underground classics, from Andy Warhol’s Lonesome Cowboys (1968) and Taylor Mead’s Ass to the first film of the Beat generation, The Flower Thief (1960) On stage he created the title role in Frank O’Hara’s The General Returns from One Place to Another (1963) and Michael McClure’s Spider Rabbit. (1971). More recently he was featured in Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), and this year stars in the documentary Excavating Taylor Mead.

The Bowery Bartenders Big Book of Poems

Starting with the premise that bartenders who pour at a poetry club must also be poets in their own right, the series volume two is: The Bowery Bartenders Big Book of Poems featuring inspired poetry from Shappy; Moonshine Shorey; Laurel Barclay - as well as a cohort of intoxicating poems in the form of cocktail recipes by Gary Mex Glazner. Here, have a drink:

The Sharon Olds

1 cup spicy Bloody Mary mix
1 cup fresh squeezed Orange juice
½ cup fresh squeezed Lime juice
3 teaspoons Grenadine
Dash Chili powder
Pinch of Salt
Fresh ground Pepper

Mixing instructions:

Combine all ingredients with naked body on sheet. Add sweat jumping out of pores, stir well with palm. Serve on belly. Sign on for the duration.