Litmus Press

Litmus Press Publisher of innovative, cross-genre, and interdisciplinary work by poets, writers, translators, and artists. Follow us!

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04/03/2025

"Ammiel Alcalay’s voice combines revolt and depth, and his poetics takes the reader to a new approach of literary commitment. His work goes beyond the classical concept of political commitment, in a way that makes from poetry an oasis and a source of discovering reality. Poetry and literature in the works of Alcalay are a road towards knowledge. In this sense, literature becomes a way that leads us to what lies beneath the truth. It is as the classical Arab critic al-Jurjani says: “the meaning of the meaning,” or the truth that is under/beyond reality.""

— Elias Khoury

Controlled Demolition has arrived in the post ⚙️ Order your copy through our website or our distributor

03/12/2025

A 'luminous bilingual anthology' ⭐️ We love to see this STARRED review from for Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland.

Congrats to .o.malek )

03/11/2025

Next week at the University of Pennsylvania:

A Celebration of the Life and Work of Lyn Hejinian

(in person)

hosted by: Julia Bloch and Laynie Browne

with: Charles Bernstein, Laynie Browne, Pattie McCarthy, Jena Osman, Ron Silliman, Claire Marie Stancek & Syd Zolf

RSVP Through the link in our bio

“Please join us for a special evening honoring the life and work of poet, essayist, translator and teacher Lyn Hejinian (May 17, 1941–February 24, 2024). Hejinian is perhaps best known as a founding member of the Language Writing group of poets and for her book My Life, which revolutionized the form of verse memoir, as well as for her essays in the brilliant collection The Language of Inquiry, which introduced readers to the revolutionary concept of "the rejection of closure." Lyn Hejinian was also a beloved teacher, generous force for poetry, activist and community member. Hejinian's oeuvre is truly remarkable and her influence on generations of writers cannot be overstated. A number of poets will read from Lyn's work, offer personal remembrances, and collectively engage with her poetry, critical writing, translation, publishing, and extraordinary presence. This event is both for readers new to Lyn's work as well as for her many devoted readers and friends — all are welcome.”

02/25/2025

Starting this Thursday:

Etel Adnan: In the Rhythms of the World�A Symposium.
Organized by Omar Berrada & Simone Fattal�Hosted by The Poetry Project, with Giorno Poetry Systems and Anthology Film Archives�

“Etel Adnan’s oeuvre did not follow a masterplan; it expanded and shape-shifted ceaselessly. Each book invented its own genre. And yet her tone is unmistakable, combining sharp observation with the associative logic of dreams. “I followed lines I never saw, went on unchartered roads, didn’t emerge from any confusion. The present was forever blowing.”
Throughout her existence, she was committed to being “in the rhythms of the world.” In the face of a life “woven with war,” she chose to look the apocalypse in the eye, always seeking appropriate forms for bearing witness.”��

Please join us also for the book launch of “Voyage, War, Exile” happening as part of the centennial THIS Friday at 8pm and find out more about the weekend's abundance through the Poetry Project's event page (linked in our bio).

02/24/2025

Meet editor Mark Tardi who will be reading at the launch of "Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland" THIS Wednesday, February 26th with translator Małgorzata Myk and poet Natalia Malek.�

The event will take place at Housing Works Bookstore on 126 Crosby Street @ 6pm

02/20/2025

Meet translator and writer Małgorzata Myk will be reading at the launch of
of "Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland" on Wednesday, February 26th with editor Mark Tardi and poet Natalia Malek.�
The event will take place at Housing Works Bookstore on 126 Crosby Street @ 6pm

"Mark Tardi, Małgorzata Myk, Lynn Suh, and Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi have created an exciting translation project that is sorely needed in these times when many geopolitical borders are becoming increasingly impervious and violent. Their miraculous, transnational, collective work offers crucial visibility of Polish women poets who are reshaping the past, present, and future terrains of contemporary Polish poetry." — Don Mee Choi on Viscera

02/19/2025

“Voyage, War, Exile” by Etel Adnan will be launching on Friday February 28th at 8pm as part Etel Adnan’s centennial: a weekend of readings and talks at The Poetry Project, New York City.

Organized by Omar Berrada and Simone Fattal on the centenary of Etel Adnan's birth, this symposium gathers together old friends, confirmed specialists, and younger disciples of Adnan's. They will offer poetry, talks and musical performances in response to multiple aspects of her literary and visual work.

Please visit the Poetry Project’s website (linked in our bio) to find more details and a full schedule on the abundance of offerings that are folded into the celebration of Adnan’s Centennial.

Contributors include George Abraham, Ammiel Alcalay, Jean-Philippe Antoine, Amir ElSaffar, Huda Fakhreddine, Peter Gizzi, Maaza Mengiste, Saretta Morgan & Ica Sadagat, Eileen Myles & Ryan Sawyer, Sarah Riggs, Lisa Robertson, Jennifer Scappettone, Brandon Shimoda, Hamed Sinno, and Kamelya Omayma Youssef.

02/16/2025

Meet poet Natalia Malek who will be reading at the launch of
of "Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland" on Wednesday, February 26th with editor Mark Tardi and Translator Małgorzata Myk .�
The event will take place at Housing Works Bookstore on 126 Crosby Street @ 6pm

"The eight poets selected for the presentation show Polish poetry at its best and most daring… The poets in Viscera speak in an astonishing variety of distinct voices; there are greater differences between them than similarities — what they have in common however is their ‘peripheral’ (in the positive meaning of the word) position: none of them belongs to the literary mainstream, none of them is the media’s darling, most of them are at the beginning of their literary careers, which makes [the] selection highly unique and uncompromising. A pioneering work indeed…" — Jerzy Jarniewicz on Viscera

02/14/2025

Viscera: Poetry Workshop + Q&A
Thu, Feb 27 2025 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Greenpoint Library
107 Norman Ave. at Leonard St.
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Join us for a workshop facilitated by translators and poets from Poland, which invites participants to explore bilingual and experimental poetic practices. Built around a new Litmus collection titled Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland, this generative writing workshop will include readings in English and Polish by contributors Małgorzata Myk, Natalia Malek, and Mark Tardi, as well as group discussions, writing prompts, and collective sharing of work.

While the program will be conducted in English, writing prompts will be offered in both English and Polish. Following the workshop section, there will be a bilingual Q&A.

No background in poetry or translation is required. All are welcome!

**Please register in advance via the QR code or the link in our bio!**

02/12/2025

We are thrilled to invite you to the New York launch of "Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland" on Wednesday, February 26th with editor Mark Tardi, translator Małgorzata Myk and poet Natalia Malek.�
The event will take place at Housing Works Bookstore on 126 Crosby Street @ 6pm

“I’ve read these poems a lot, mainly one dark night by headlamp in my car in a walmart parking lot in Texas on the eve of the total eclipse. I thought my mother’s first language was polish and I love these poems so much I want to translate them through the body of my dead mother. People who teach should use these viscera, people who sing in front of bands should shout these lyrics, I want to throw away the pressure of nations, why polish poems, but then everything devolves to English. These are far better than American poems I know, better than mine, anything can happen in here and Viscera is a new blank goddess who watches war on their phone, checks the inside of their body in and out till we’re millions of miles into space, and we want to come home, and when we do this is all there is, and it is good.”
— Eileen Myles on Viscera

02/10/2025

As we move into the new year and onto new projects, we want to share what some recent authors and editors have to say about publishing with Litmus.💫

Here is Ammiel Alcalay who will be reading from his new book Controlled Demolition on Wednesday at the Poetry Project together with Mosab Abu Toha.

02/04/2025

Announcing Ammiel Alcalay & Mosab Abu Toha reading at The Poetry Project on February 12th.

Please join us for this very special reading, which will also celebrate the official launch of Alcalay's CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books.

Books will be on sale at the event and you can also pre-order copies through our distributor, Asterism.

"Mosab Abu Toha and Ammiel Alcalay's poetry bring new meaning to the act of witnessing, writing with and for the dead, summoning the living in a call to imagine anew—form an image of another world lying below the rubble of this world’s unending devastation."

CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books combines three of Ammiel Alcalay’s previously published poetic texts—Scrapmetal (2007), the cairo notebooks (1993), and from the warring factions (2002)—with a new work, "Controlled Demolition." Unlike most writing categorized as “documentary” poetry, here the author and his process are constant reference points, serving as a prism to refract changes over time and circumstance in what becomes a mix of memoir, poetry, auto-critique, prose narrative, history, and investigative journalism by other means.

RSVP through the link in our bio. This event will also be livestreamed for free on the Project's YouTube channel.

01/30/2025

Friends in France, this Friday:

Safaa Fathy and Sarah Riggs will be reading together from their new and published works in a special event presented by Double Change at the Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore

7pm | 19h

11 Rue de Médicis, Paris

01/29/2025

Join us on Friday, February 7 at 7pm to celebrate the release of Simone Fattal's first comprehensive monograph (Portikus / Hatje Cantz, 2024).

Simone Fattal will be joined in conversation by writer, editor, and curator Negar Azimi to discuss her wide-ranging practice, spanning ceramics, sculpture, painting, collage, and publishing.

Influenced by her first-hand experiences of migration, displacement, and war, Simone Fattal (b. 1942) transcends the bounds of both media and geography like few artists of her generation. Her abstract bronze and ceramic sculptures reference ancient myths and archaeological finds, and her collages combine snippets from her private archive with historical events from the Arab world.

In 1982, Fattal founded The Post-Apollo Press, issuing Etel Adnan’s chapbook From A to Z as its first title. The Press would go on to publish experimental works of poetry, prose, and translation for over thirty years, amplifying the voices of avant-garde writers from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. The Post-Apollo Press is now shepherded by Litmus Press. (Last year we released a digital-critical edition of From A to Z with he free-to-all platform Open Poetics –– download the edition and eBook for free, now! Link in bio)

Free and open to the public.�Reservation required. RSVP in bio!

Center For Art, Research and Alliances
225 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10011

📸Simone Fattal photographed in her Paris studio by Jonas Unger, 2019

Address

925 Bergen Street #405
Crown Heights, NY
11238

Website

http://www.litmuspress.org/

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