Summer Comes Undone with 3 New Titles from Cy Gist Press

Cy Gist Press is Happy to announce the release of 3 new titles, just in time for the end of the summer.

GARY GYGAX by John Sakkis (28 pp. Saddle-stapled.) $8 ppd.

The tradition of the Bestiarum vocabulum goes back to the 12th century; the tradition of Dungeons & Dragons, that cross between improvisational theater and light bondage, goes back to the 1970’s when it was invented by this chapbook’s eponymous hero. If you grew up in the 70s or 80’s you played D&D, knew someone who played D&D, or stuffed someone into a locker who played D&D. Whatever your feelings about game, there is no question that in their earliest incarnations, its rulebooks were celebrations ofbizarre language and bizarre ideas, which undoubtedly had their influence upon poets-to-be who indulged in them. In Gary Gygax, John Sakkis brings bohemia back to its roots in its parents’ basement in this monster manual of beings malevolent and benign. Like an umber hulk, this book is a strange hybrid of disparate parts—snippets of language pulled from the game, from popular culture and from Sakkis’ subconscious. Like an umber hulk, this book will hold you rapt with its four terrible eyes.

LOOKING FOR LAKE TEXCOCO by Kevin P. Gallagher, with Spanish language translation by Guillermo Parra.
(44 pp. Sewn Binding. English and Spanish Facing Pages.) $8.00 ppd.

The author says of Looking for Lake Texcoco:

“These poems are a variation sequence evoking the painting “La Cuidad de Mexico, 1949” by Juan O’Gorman, an Irish-Mexican painter who lived in Mexico (1905-1982). The painting, now at the Museo Arte de Moderno in Mexico City, is a bird’s eye view of Mexico City during its transformation into a modern city. In the foreground, two hands hold a map known as the Santa Cruz map, which represents the colonial city being built on top of the ruins of the pre-Hispanic era. In the top right of the painting two angels carry a Mexican flag bearing the legend "Viva Mexico.”

Alongside Gallagher’s English is a Spanish-language translation by Guillermo Parra, author of Caracas Notebook.

DEAD-EYE SPRING
by Cheryl Clark Vermeulen
(24 pp. Sewn Binding. Vellum Endpapers.) $8 ppd.

Dead-Eye Spring offers a bird’s-eye view of being-in-the world. Cheryl Clark Vermeulen navigates the minefield between the self and the universe as a Kevlar-clad ballerina. Never quotidian, Vermeulen’s unheimlich observations consistently surprise and reassure. She is unafraid to tell us what we already knew but were afraid to ask. Do not fear this chapbook, fear this chapbook.