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Ann Menebroker | The Measure of Small Gratitudes

Here at Kamini Press we are very proud to present

The Measure of Small Gratitudes

by Ann Menebroker

Thirteen new poems. All 125 books signed by the poet. Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed water color painting by Henry Denander. Mini-chapbook format, in wraps.

[quickshop:Ann Menebroker | The Measure of Small Gratitudes:price:10:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Signed edition $10 (including shipping all over the world)

Twenty-five special numbered copies come with a signed water color painting by Henry Denander.

[quickshop:Ann Menebroker | The Measure of Small Gratitudes – with a signed water color painting:price:25:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]Limited edition with artwork $25 (including shipping)

In Sweden, please pay SEK 60 per book to Bankgiro 5889-0781, price including postage and VAT. SEK 150 for the limited version. Email to reserve.

More info about this and other Kamini Press titles on our website www.kaminipress.com. We can also send a PayPal invoice if that is easier for you.

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Kamini Press, Ringvägen 8, 4th floor, SE-117 26 Stockholm, Sweden

Here some words on Annie Menebroker and this book:

ARTHUR WINFIELD KNIGHT
”Ann Menebroker is a legendary figure in the small press poetry scene. These poems will show you why.”

NEELI CHERKOVSKI
”Ann Menebroker is an extraordinary poet. Her voice is singular. The open-heartedness of her vision is a splendor to behold. Reader, enter and be transformed.”

GERALD LOCKLIN
”When I think of Ann Menebroker, I think of the Bay Area Delta, which whose marshes I associate Endangered Species, and then I’m back to Ann, because she is a unique poetic species whose voice has defied extinction for fifty years, for many of which we have been poetry pals at opposite ends of the Great Central Valley, and Henry Denander does not anoint many poets with the honor of a mini-chapbook in the Kamini Press Poetry Series (this one is Number 8), but he has here chosen perfectly because Ann is of those heroines who persevere in their poetry simply because it is what they were born to do (Wilma McDaniel was another), and they turn their lives into lines that resemble no one’s other than their own, and before they know it they have made of their unassuming lives a legacy of pure verbal authenticity. “For Joe DiMaggio” takes its place alongside the tributes to The Yankee Clipper by Hemingway and Paul Simon. In “Composition” “music . . . is also a way to go other places” and, along with loved ones, takes “the measure of small gratitudes.” And in “What Doesn’t Fit Here,” the speaker purrs, “i’m old style, honey,” and I whisper in reply, “So am I, Annie, and you are just plain fine, as fine as one of Henry’s fine designs.”

LYNNE SAVITT
”Annie Menebroker has a poet’s precise eye for mundane details. She turns everyday occurrences into art with lyrical humor & pathos. A shot glass full of Menebroker a day will give your muse a much-needed hard-on for her belly dance of words.”

SAMUEL CHARTERS
”There’s a kind of poem that my friend Annie Menebroker has a personal license to write – a poem where she walks up to life and looks it right in the eye. She doesn’t push or crowd, she’s just quietly letting the world know that she’s there. She does it again and again in this immaculate new collection presented with the attention and respect for the writing we’ve learned to expect with Kamini Press. Note the perfect balance of her tender ballad to baseball ”For Joe DiMaggio” and feel a little better about your day. You’ll find yourself laughing sometimes and agreeing with her sentiments when she asks fellow poet Robert Bly to be her Valentine. Her ex-husband won’t mind since he already knows that poets ”are too full of ourselves.” When you read a poem like ”Photo Composition” with its acceptance of our mortality you begin to think about people you’ve known and you catch your breath a little. The poems are written with skill and an understated awareness of the resources poets bring to their solitary work. Thank you, Annie, for the phrase ”The Measure of Small Gratitudes” – it helps me understand things I’ve felt but never could find the words for. I couldn’t ask a poem or poetry itself to give me anything more than these moments of illumination you’ve shared with us.”

Ann, who lives in Sacramento, California, has published over twenty collections of poetry during a writing career spanning fifty years. In 2010 her work appeared in a college textbook, Literature and Its Writers, edited by Ann & Samuel Charters.


Ann Menebroker | Painting by Henry Denander

Ann Menebroker

has published over twenty collections of poetry during a writing career spanning fifty years. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. She has collaborated with artists and other poets on numerous projects in Sacramento, California. In the late 1970’s she edited and published a poetry magazine, Impulse. She continues to write and in 2006 she was part of the documentary film I Began To Speak, with other poets associated with the Sacramento poetry scene. The film is based on readings and interviews. In 2010, her work appeared in a college textbook, Literature and Its Writers, edited by Ann & Samuel Charters. A small limited-run hardcover book of her poems, Sunscreen in the Fog, was published by Bottle of Smoke Press in 2010.

Also by Ann Menebroker:

  • It Isn’t Everything (1968)
  • Three Drums for the Lady (1968)
  • The Habit of Wishing (1977)
  • Dark Pleasure (1984)
  • Biting Through the Spine (1985)
  • The Blue Fish (1985)
  • On the Edge (1986)
  • Feast in Solitude (1989)
  • Slices (1990)
  • Routines That Will Kill You (1990)
  • Mailbox Boogie (1991)
  • Dream Catcher (1992)
  • To Get It Right (1997)
  • Surviving Bukowski (1998)
  • Trying For the Ten Ring (2000)
  • Walking the Dog (2003)
  • The Downtown of Life (2004)
  • Tiny Teeth (2004)
  • 3 poems 4 Bukowski (2005)
  • Tuning In (2006)
  • Swallowed by This Whale of Time (2007)
  • Small Crimes (2008)
  • Sunscreen in the Fog (2010)