Ahsahta Press’s Janet Holmes

 

In August of 2009, Ahsahta Press’ Director Janet Holmes talked with us about poetry from the Western United States, Karla Kelsey, and the “accessible avante garde.”

— Carlin M. Wragg, Editor

 

Carlin M. Wragg Can you talk a little about Ahsahta’s mission and history?

 

Janet Holmes: Ahsahta turns 35 years old this year — it was founded in 1974 by three Boise State English Department professors determined to bring back into print a number of Western poets whose work was no longer available. Fairly soon they began also to print living Western poets. The emphasis on poetry from the Western United States was highlighted by their choice of the word “ahsahta” as the press name: it’s a Mandan word first recorded by Lewis & Clark during their time in Idaho, and refers to a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, the kind with the curled horn that became our logo.

 

During the years between 1976 and 1995, the press printed first books by David Baker, Linda Bierds, Wyn Cooper, Cynthia Hogue, and Gary Short — all still very active poets. But the original editors lost interest in the press, or retired, and with the exception of two or three books the press was dormant until I came on board in 2001.

 

The chance to re-establish the press was thrilling. The press took a more avant-garde focus, opened itself up to national and international submissions, and established a contest to get the word out, attracting about 8,000 submissions that first year. Our new mission highlights what I think of as “the accessible avant garde,” which I’d describe as formally experimental work that teaches you to read it as you go, the kind of work that takes you by surprise in an engaging manner. It’s also work that is consciously created as art — by which I mean it is highly if idiosyncratically crafted, and its form is essential to a reader’s understanding. There aren’t very many presses that will take chances on experimental writing because there isn’t an enormous readership out there (yet) and they’re worried that the books won’t sell. It’s a legitimate worry. But if the books don’t exist then readers’ tastes will never be tantalized, and they’ll never learn what other kinds of poetries are out there. We’re affiliated with Boise State University, and the idea that universities should support work that has lasting value but isn’t necessarily “popular” is, fortunately, still with us, albeit not at the level we might like.

 

CMW: How does Karla Kelsey’s work reflect that mission?

 

JH: Her language is precise and gorgeous and enacts rather than describes. And she worked with the space on the page — asterisks down the page in the “Aperture” poems and the various indentations — so there was meaning in the arrangement. You change as you read the book. The book also kind of walks you through a way of thinking about the world.

 

CMW: What do you see the role of the press being in your writers’ careers?

 

JH: I really don’t see the press as having to do with “careers.” That seems to limit the project to one kind of outcome, though I know of course it does further careers in the academy, in the sense that teachers need to publish books to be promoted or even hired. I hope instead that Ahsahta functions as a kind of aesthetic community of writers and readers who value poetry as something beyond a book in the hand, as a non-perishable sustenance. I’m happy to see that over the years we’ve had some regular “followers,” who trust the aesthetic decisions at the press. And — maybe this is what your question is getting at — I want, insofar as I can, to nurture Ahsahta writers through more than just one book. We aren’t large enough to allow that for everyone, clearly, but that’s a distinct impulse.

 

CMW: What are Ahsahta’s plans for the future?

 

JH: This year is our anniversary year, and we’re celebrating by publishing new books by authors we’ve previously brought out, as I just mentioned. We have Kate Greenstreet’s highly anticipated second book following case sensitive — a book called The Last 4 Things, which will come with two movies Kate made on a DVD included with the book. Brigitte Byrd, whose first book established her gift with the prose poem, has a new one about a convoluted relationship called Song of a Living Room. Sandra Miller — now Sandra Doller — has a fascinating sequence called Chora, while Susan Tichy is bringing out Gallowglass, another book dealing with the individual response to war. We’ve been publishing Lance Phillips’s work since the very beginning of the New Series, and his third book, These Indicium Tales, is a new installment of his ongoing project about the body. Ahsahta has two new authors in Brenda Iijima, runner up in our 2007 Sawtooth contest with her book If Not Metamorphic, and Julie Carr, whose 100 Notes on Violence was selected by Rae Armantrout as winner of this year’s contest. The Sawtooth contest this coming year will have Terrance Hayes judging.

 

We have a publishing list that extends about five years out, so we know that we’ll shortly be publishing books by Brian Teare, Elizabeth Robinson, Kristen Kaschock, and Andrew Grace, as well as Karla’s new book and work by Brian Henry, Noah Eli Gordon, and other Ahsahta authors. I’m hoping that we can keep up our level of production through the vicissitudes of the economy — but we’ll be continuing regardless of what happens.

 

Ahsahta Press