UDP endeavors to create an experience of art free of expectation, coercion, and utility. Ugly Duckling Presse is a nonprofit art & publishing collective producing editions of new poetry, translations, lost works, and artist's books.
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The Presse favors emerging, international, and "forgotten" writers with well-defined formal or conceptual projects that are difficult to place at other presses. Its full-length books, chapbooks, artist’s books, broadsides, magazine and newspaper all contain handmade elements, calling attention to the labor and history of bookmaking.
Operating as usual
"what
sings the new horizon
is the demented bird that grabs it"
— poems by Jean D’Amérique translated by Conor Bracken (forthcoming UDP 2022) appear in the newest issue of
Quarterly West
https://www.quarterlywest.com/issue-103-damerique
Jean D’Amérique, translated by Conor Bracken
Our partner bookstore Knife Fork Book is featuring Aisha Sasha John's TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED!
"With masterful clarity, Aisha Sasha John transforms that archetypal tale of “the return home” into a capsule of sensations that is so contemporary and alive."
— Sheila Heti
Check it out here: https://bit.ly/2THElCQ
Our partner bookstore Knife Fork Book is featuring Aisha Sasha John's TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED!
"With masterful clarity, Aisha Sasha John transforms that archetypal tale of “the return home” into a capsule of sensations that is so contemporary and alive."
— Sheila Heti
Check it out here: https://bit.ly/2THElCQ
"Any person or text that introduces an anarchic element into African literature is a Marechera. As Mushakavanhu shows in the book, this dissidence does not exclude but places Marechera and those like him at the center of African literary history because it is through their resistance to the norm that they “redraft the lines” of what is possible. An account of literary history that centers Marechera is a witness to the revolutionary impulse on which African literature was founded"
— Ainehi Edoro on Mushakavanhu's Reincarnating Marechera: Notes On a Speculative Archive (UDP 2020) in Brittle Paper
Pick up a copy here: https://bit.ly/3yrmoqG
"What do you bring to a dead man, a dead Marechera?" asks Tinashe Mushakavanhu as he sets out to visit Dambudzo Marechera's grave. Beers? Books? Flowers? W**d? This question about how to properly honor dead revolutionaries is at the heart of Reincarnating Marechera: Notes on a Speculative Archive.
"More than rejection of canonical white literary traditions, Black jazz poets understand the nature of liberation, right down to the utterance of sound.
In thinking of Pritchard’s lineage, audiences bear witness to poetry created from spacious, unrestrained perspectives."
— Erica N. Cardwell on N.H. Pritchard's The Matrix (UDP 2021 and Primary Information) and EECCHHOOEESS (DABA Press, 2021) reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail
https://brooklynrail.org/2021/06/art_books/NH-Pritchards-The-Matrix-and-EECCHHOOEESS
Get your copy of The Matrix here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/the-matrix/
These poetry collections exemplify the literary innovation of this eraa commitment to the pursuit and study of sound and a symbolic resistance to legibility. Pritchards poetry illustrates a specific tenant of jazz poetics: words are more malleable when deconstructed.
"here is some ambitious big-canvas thinking and structure in this work, and Dreiblatt doesn’t seem afraid of touching on contemporary politics, and issues of environmental and social justice: “& the time I birth will / eat the color out of / ruins, she answers, & mummify / your seas in plastics.”
— Rob Mclennan reviews Ian Dreiblatt's forget thee (UDP 2021)
pick up a copy here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/forget-thee/
Julius Caesar enters the room ancestral spirits bending the window’s light like a pool, linen meshed with metals, and then gravely spe...
"As a kind of prophetic text this neat, epic, yet appealingly casual in tone monograph does the hefty work of lifting vision out of the collective unsense of our trafficked signifiers and touchstones, a market becoming the commons."
— Mike Hauser reviews Ian Dreiblatt's forget thee (2021) for Auxiliary Monuments
pick up the book here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/forget-thee/
Ian Dreiblatt forget thee | Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021 Basil Bunting wrote: To appreciate present conditions/ collate them with those of a...
"Your latest docuseries, Can’t Get You Out of My Head, is subtitled “an emotional history of the modern world.” This really struck me because you’d think emotion would be incompatible with history, accurate or not. Yet at this moment, it makes perfect sense why you’d suggest that connection. We do seem swayed from every angle by emotion rather than fact. Political history has become more subjective and abstracted."
— Eli Keszler in conversation with Adam Curtis
Check out Eli Keszler and David Grubbs's record, One and One Less (UDPR, 2017), here: https://bit.ly/3qISNXg
Features New writing from friends of the label Icons: Eli Keszler in Conversation with Adam Curtis 23rd June 2021 Photography Leia Jospe Design Dominic...
"I seek writing that explores the potential of language to break down. Translated myths include transformation both in content—characters inhabit different bodies—and in form—languages alter each other... It attunes readers to other ways of being and beings in the world, and makes them question what is linguistically and canonically legitimate."
— Elisa Taber on her translation of Miguelángel Meza's forthcoming UDP chapbook, Ita ha’eñoso / Ya no está sola la piedra formerly and again known as Pyambu / Dream Pattering Soles, in Harriet Books at Poetry Foundation
Check out the forthcoming chapbook here: https://bit.ly/3y5J2ophttps://bit.ly/3y5J2op
In late 2021, Ugly Duckling Presse, where I am an editor, will publish a trilingual edition (in Guaraní, Spanish, and English) of a chapbook by the contemporary Paraguayan poet Miguelángel...
Our open calls for First-ish Chapbooks and First Translations close tomorrow, June 30. Visit udp.submittable.com/submit for full guidelines. We're excited to read your work!
Our open calls for First-ish Chapbooks and First Translations close tomorrow, June 30. Visit udp.submittable.com/submit for full guidelines. We're excited to read your work!
UDP welcomes your submissions for first-ish chapbooks and first translations through June 30th!
Check out our submittable for more info: https://udp.submittable.com/submit
UDP welcomes your submissions for first-ish chapbooks and first translations through June 30th!
Check out our submittable for more info: https://udp.submittable.com/submit
"Van Horn is an acute observer of the everyday strange who writes a prose that is both idiosyncratic and transparent, conversational in tone, yet somehow maintaining sufficient detachment."
—Billy Mills on Erica Van Horn's By Bus (UDP 2021)
Read more of the review here: https://bit.ly/3xNcJdI
Pick up a copy of By Bus here: https://bit.ly/3qoBWbT
"Van Horn is an acute observer of the everyday strange who writes a prose that is both idiosyncratic and transparent, conversational in tone, yet somehow maintaining sufficient detachment."
—Billy Mills on Erica Van Horn's By Bus (UDP 2021)
Read more of the review here: https://bit.ly/3xNcJdI
Pick up a copy of By Bus here: https://bit.ly/3qoBWbT
A poetry reading// A poetry reading in the sky// The sky, as in Palestine will take place at Athens Square on Friday, June 25th, at 6:30 pm EST! It will feature UDP authors Benjamin Krusling, Mona Kareem, and others.
Ahh, yes, an in-person event. We are grateful to be here. Come join us for an evening of poetry in the park. For a Free Palestine.
Listen to UDP author Mirene Arsanios in conversation with Celina Su on Taamas: Invitation to the Species podcast. Both "motherless mothers without mother tongues", they discuss the lineages of their languages, liminal subjectivities and the impossibility of “we” in light of differentially distributed access to resources.
Check it out here: http://tamaas.org/podcast/invitation-to-the-species/
Pamphlet available here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/notes-on-mother-tongues/
Listen to UDP author Mirene Arsanios in conversation with Celina Su on Taamas: Invitation to the Species podcast. Both "motherless mothers without mother tongues", they discuss the lineages of their languages, liminal subjectivities and the impossibility of “we” in light of differentially distributed access to resources.
Check it out here: http://tamaas.org/podcast/invitation-to-the-species/
Pamphlet available here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/notes-on-mother-tongues/
"I found a love that is created in q***r community and in the natural world, awake to the rhythms of the land and rooted in transformative relationships. This book is both a product and a tribute to that love."
— Katie Fowley on her book The Supposed Huntsman (UDP, 2021) in The Kenyon Review
Pick up a copy of her book here: https://bit.ly/3vL1HUR
With the Covid-19 pandemic, there have obviously been dozens of books that haven’t received the shine they might have under normal circumstances. One in particular that I’ve recently enjoyed is Katie Fowley’s The Supposed Huntsman. Published by the ever-amazing Ugly Duckling Presse, Fowley....
"Indeed, this is publication as close to gift-giving as I can imagine. Reading them together is nothing short of an education in poetics, in the industry of small press publishing, the politics of translation."
—Sam Buchan-Watts on UDP's 2020 Pamphlet Series for The London Magazine
You can purchase the full set of 2020 pamphlets here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/2020-pamphlet-series/
Sam Buchan-Watts An Idiom in Itself 2020 Pamphlet Series, Ugly Duckling Presse Ugly Duckling Presse (or UDP) have over the past two decades fostered a rich and influential poetics culture. Their delectable print publications hark back simultaneously to the historical precedent of the pamphlet as fug...
"His is a multi-storeyed work, finding ancient linguistic systems in car parks, conferring the quotidian spaces of late capitalism with the dignity of the palimpsest."
— Jack Parlett for SPAM zine & Press on Nathaniel Farrell's Lost Horizon (UDP, 2019)
Check out the book on the UDP site:
https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/lost-horizon/
Jack Parlett ventures through the colliding landscapes and libidinal economies of Nathaniel Farrell's Lost Horizon (Ugly Duckling Presse).
On Tuesday, June 29th at 7pm EST, 92nd Street Y will be virtually hosting UDP author Nicole Delgado and UDP translator Carina del Valle Schorske for a bilingual event! More info below.
Online. A reading and conversation between Nicole Cecilia Delgado and Carina del Valle Schorske.
The Poetry Project is accepting applications for the Emerge-Surface-Be Fellowship 2021-22 cycle! UDP authors Stacy Szymaszek and Asiya Wadud are serving as mentors.
Check out the UDP site for more work by these authors:
Asiya Wadud's Syncope (UDP, 2019)
https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/syncope/
Stacy Szymaszek's The Hero Auden/80's Pink (UDP, 2017)
https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/the-hero-auden-80s-pink/
The Poetry Project has always been a space that facilitates and values contact and learning between poets from different generations and experiences, and in 2013 we initiated the Emerge-Surface-Be fellowship program to formalize that relationship-centered pedagogical model while providing a unique o...
"Sardonic yet joyful, sarcastic and crazed, the poems in Ova Completa indulge in a transgressive delight in the way that all language—governmental or poetic, casual or authoritative—can be worked over, either made to crumble or to recompose."
— Kathleen Rooney on Susana Thénon and Ova Completa (UDP, 2021) for Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine.
Pick up a copy of the book here: https://bit.ly/3tscK53
Susana Thénon’s poems of deeply lyrical protest.
UDP author Reina María Rodríguez is featured in Latin American Literature Today! Read poems by Rodríguez and accompanying pieces by translator Kristin Dykstra, Eilyn Lombard, and Elena Lahr-Vivaz.
Pick up a copy of The Winter Garden Photograph (UDP, 2019) here: https://bit.ly/35qyTpT
This Thursday at 7:30pm EST, join us as we celebrate the launch of Second Factory's new issue! Hosted by Asbury Book Cooperative. Register for this free Zoom event here: https://bit.ly/3iHouhl
This Thursday at 7:30pm EST, join us as we celebrate the launch of Second Factory's new issue! Hosted by Asbury Book Cooperative. Register for this free Zoom event here: https://bit.ly/3iHouhl
Join UDP and over 40 other exhibitors at Printed Matter, Inc. / St Marks and 8Ball Community’s Spring Zine Fair this Saturday, June 12, on St Marks Pl between 1st and 2nd Avenue! 11am-7pm.
In celebration of the grassroots reclamation of the Lower East Side’s unused space by gardeners, squatters, and artists—nearby community gardens will be hosting a variety of programs throughout the day, including composting workshops, a poetry reading, concerts, leaf pressings, and more! The fair guide will be in the form of an East Village Fanzine spotlighting local stories, businesses, and organizations.
Flyer by @codydefranco
Join UDP and over 40 other exhibitors at Printed Matter, Inc. / St Marks and 8Ball Community’s Spring Zine Fair this Saturday, June 12, on St Marks Pl between 1st and 2nd Avenue! 11am-7pm.
In celebration of the grassroots reclamation of the Lower East Side’s unused space by gardeners, squatters, and artists—nearby community gardens will be hosting a variety of programs throughout the day, including composting workshops, a poetry reading, concerts, leaf pressings, and more! The fair guide will be in the form of an East Village Fanzine spotlighting local stories, businesses, and organizations.
Flyer by @codydefranco
Only a couple of days left until the Softcover Long-stitch Binding workshop this Sunday, June 13! You can still sign up for a spot here:
ROT TALKS is an experimental lecture series and decomposition class for the end times on the poetics of rot and the arts of breaking down. This week the discussion will bring together radical mycologists and poets to offer ruminations on rot as sustenance for growth, hosted by The Poetry Project.
UDP author Cecilia Vicuña will be participating along with William Padilla Brown and manuel arturo abreu.
Radical mycologists and poets offer ruminations on rot as sustenance for growth. Lecture-experiments draw from metaphors of the mushroom: the fleshy spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus that troubles the distinction between singular and collective. William Padilla Brown / Tiny intricate things co...
Starting today through June 30 we're accepting submissions for First Translations! For more info & to submit, visit our submittable: https://udp.submittable.com/submit
Starting today through June 30 we're accepting submissions for First Translations! For more info & to submit, visit our submittable: https://udp.submittable.com/submit
From today through June 30 we're accepting submissions for First-ish Chaps! For more info & to submit, visit our submittable: https://udp.submittable.com/submit
From today through June 30 we're accepting submissions for First-ish Chaps! For more info & to submit, visit our submittable: https://udp.submittable.com/submit
Get your manuscripts ready! We're opening submissions starting June 7. For more information & guidelines on each open call, visit our website: http://uglyducklingpresse.org/about/submissions/
Get your manuscripts ready! We're opening submissions starting June 7. For more information & guidelines on each open call, visit our website: http://uglyducklingpresse.org/about/submissions/
232 Third St. (The Old American Can Factory)
Brooklyn, NY
11215
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Our Summer 2020 "Full Presse" subscription package includes this broadside of a page from Lev Rubinstein's (Лев Рубинштейн) "Thirty-five New Pages" (translated by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky). For more information on Rubinstein's Compleat Catalogue of Comedic Novelties, which contains the full text of this piece, see here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/compleat-catalogue-of-comedic-novelties/ To subscribe in time to receive the next package, see our subscription options here: https://uglyducklingpresse.org/subscribe/ (Film Credit: Linda Trimbath)
My Ida by Simone Kearney A sequence of meditations on the strange and relentless nature of our longing for completion, an elegy to our incompletion. Read it here: https://cdn.flipsnack.com/widget/v2/widget.html?hash=f7tkyp9h6
"The Barf is an upheaval... reflective, each delivery calls forth a framing... Its logic is associative, it proceeds by chords rather than single, discrete notes." Dodie Bellamy's BARF MANIFESTO is available to read online here: https://cdn.flipsnack.com/widget/v2/widget.html?hash=ftp301zo8 If you're seeking the simulation of turning a page of an out of print book, you can find it on the Online Chapbook Archive—sound effect included.
Today is the last day of our Women in Translation Month Sale! Use the code WIT to activate the discount of 25% off for all books and chapbooks in translation written or translated by women. https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/
UDP is running a Women in Translation Month Sale! Use the code WIT to get 25% off on our already discounted direct prices for all books and chapbooks in translation written or translated by women. The highlighted books for today are: Liliana Ponce's Diary Marina Tsvetaeva's Letter to the Amazon Vasilisk Gnedov's Alphabet for the Entrants https://uglyducklingpresse.org/publications/
Today is the LAST CHANCE you could get FREE SHIPPING on everything from our shop! “A house without books is like a room without windows.” ― Horace Mann https://uglyducklingpresse.org/
“Putting out fiction, poetry, art books, and translated literature in beautifully designed packaging has helped this Brooklyn nonprofit indie grow from a zine into a beloved small press with over 200 titles to its name.”—Jason Diamond, Flavorwire Use the code DIVEINBOOKS to get FREE SHIPPING on everything from our shop! https://uglyducklingpresse.org
Lacking a good book to read at the beach? Take advantage of our Summer Sale using the code DIVEINBOOKS to activate FREE SHIPPING on everything from our shop! Dive in books now! https://uglyducklingpresse.org/
Dear UDP readers, we have a big Summer Sale from July 21st to August 4th. Use the code DIVEINBOOKS to get FREE SHIPPING on everything from our shop! Stock up on books for your Summer! https://uglyducklingpresse.org/
Sho Sugita reads from his translation of Hirato Renkichi's "Toad" at Pierogi last Saturday. Thanks to everyone who came out to the book party! And if you're in Brooklyn, you can catch Sugita at Earshot | Helal, Languell, Mok, Sugita tomorrow night.
Urayoán Noel truly makes translingual poetry a possibility
donate to RENT PARTY: uglyducklingpresse.org/donate
Matvei gives a wonderful speech thanking those who have contributed to UDP.
An inside look at Maybe S., tucked inside each copy of Seydel's new Songs of S. Enter discount code MAYBE for $3 off now through November 1: http://bit.ly/1wrpoz2
Chris Martin passes the hat DONATE ONLINE TODAY http://goo.gl/iJUB8M FOR MORE PASS THE HAT http://goo.gl/remAKK
Lawrence Giffin passes the hat. DONATE ONLINE TODAY http://goo.gl/iJUB8M for more PASS THE HAT, here: http://goo.gl/Wzg75h
Mike Taylor passes the hat DONATE ONLINE TODAY http://goo.gl/iJUB8M
Kim Rosenfield passes the hat. No amount is too small. Every little bit helps. DONATE ONLINE TODAY http://goo.gl/iJUB8M
Hedgerow House Publishing Company
767 3rd Ave