new book: “From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons”
Dear Students of ModPo,
Some of you may recall that Karren Alenier was an original student and later a CTA of ModPo. Her interest has always been the work of Gertrude Stein. This year she completed a Tender Buttons response project entitled From the Belly: Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.
The project includes three interactive anthologies based on the three sections of Tender Buttons—Objects, Food, and Rooms. Over 90 poets responded to the text of Tender Buttons. You may recognize some of the poets who responded: Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rae Armantrout, Teaching Assistant (TA) Erica Kaufman, and long-time Modpolian T. De Los Reyes, just to name a few familiar people. The project was inspired by commentary made within the ModPo discussion forums.
At the following link is a thumb nail sketch of what each book offers. https://www.scene4.com/0426/karrenalenier0426.html
For more information: check The Word Works website at https://wordworksbooks.org/
To purchase a single volume, place your order with Amazon. ($28 + shipping)
For those who live inside the United States, the publisher will provide a discounted price for the purchase of all three volumes. ($60 + shipping)
A RED STAMP.
If lilies are lily white if they exhaust noise and distance and even dust, if they dusty
will dirt a surface that has no extreme grace, if they do this and it is not necessary
it is not at all necessary if they do this they need a catalogue.
—Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons, Objects
Whiff
summer soup with celery
intercut the white
lily bulb sweet
crunch more
intense than
water chestnut
my bride’s bouquet
a yin to my yearning
—Karren L. Alenier
Plan to write your own response in the white space provided in these books. Gertrude will be listening! Questions: karrenalenier@gmail.com
Yours in Poetry, Karren Alenier
