Very happy to launch my new website: toddcirillo.com. A space to check out what’s happening in Todd’s poetry world; read poems, buy books, watch videos, contact me for reading and/or publishing opportunities, links to poetic friends and sites, pics, reviews, interviews, a parrot and extras. All the goodies to get good poetry out into the world. Pass it on to poetry lovers and those who don’t know they are yet.
Please visit my website at:
Filed under Drinking, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
Happy New Year from the pirates, publishers and poets at Six Ft. Swells Press. We wish to thank all of you who supported us in 2017 by purchasing our books, giving excellent reviews (even the ones some swine removed), providing us inspiration and making us a proud little poetry press. Your support means so much to us that we will raise a few toasts to each of you tonight. We accomplished a helluva lot this past year, despite the garbage political landscape that has puked over the United States but….we kept on in spite of it all with what we believe is some of the best poetry published this past year.
We could not have been happier to publish the extraordinary, Wolfgang Carstens Hell and High Water. It is a work that will forever stand as a testament to the poetry that keeps Six Ft. Swells Press going. Also, we put out a pure labor of love project by the one of kind legend, Will Staple. His book, Arrows Go Thru Hearts: Selected poems 1970-1995 is the stuff legends are made from. This book and Will Staple deserve that distinction and much more. These two books belong next to your bed, in your backpack, or as a gift to friends or enemies. We at Six Ft. Swells wish to thank Wolfgang and Will for allowing us the honor of putting their poems out into the world under our torn and drink drenched flag. The links to purchase all the books is below, better to order at the end of the year or the first books of the new one.
Us pirates have been very busy from our own corners of this land making our own individual ways through this dirty world be it with our own books such as Todd Cirillo’s, Burning the Evidence put out by the infamous Epic Rites Press, or projects; poetic, graphic design, readings in strange states, music, movement, publications and otherwise. All of this prepares us for the upcoming books/projects in the year ahead. So stay on the ship with us and good poetry will come your way. We promise and Happy New Year.
Have fun and write on…
Todd Cirillo, Julie Valin, Matt Amott, publishers, poets, pirates
http://www.lulu.com/shop/wolfgang-carstens/hell-and-high-water/paperback/product-23418912.html
Filed under Drinking, lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
A documentary of sorts. Poetry, music, video, images married together. I had the opportunity to work with the amazing and talented director, Esther Plumb Malo, to complete my desire to put my poems to film and then some. She went above and beyond. I am truly happy with how this video turned out. Please take a moment to see for yourself. Enjoy.
Filed under break up, Drinking, lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
What do poets talk about when they think everyone is listening? The question is answered in the latest episode of the acclaimed Poets Underground show is up on YouTube, click below to hear guest host, Todd Cirillo and guest poet/publisher, Wolfgang Carstens talk inspiration, poetry, the value of cuss words, his latest book, Hell and High Water (available for purchase below), selling out to the highest bidder and other half-truths from New Orleans to Alberta, Canada. Enjoy.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/wolfgang-carstens/hell-and-high-water/paperback/product-23418912.html
Filed under Drinking, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
We at Six Ft. Swells Press believe in celebration and we want you to have more beer money and great poetry. So we are offering you a 25% Discount if you order the book before November 15th in appreciation for your support of the small press and in celebration of Hell and High Water. Order your copies at the link below or to the right.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/wolfgang-carstens/hell-and-high-water/paperback/product-23385664.html
Praise for Hell and High Water:
“In Wolf Carstens’ latest book of poetry HELL AND HIGH WATER he strips bare his relationship to his wife of twenty-five years- Tracy Lee. Fuck, he’s in for a good hiding when she finds out!”
–George Anderson, Bold Monkey
Filed under break up, Drinking, Giveaway, lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer's Block, Writing
The book is available NOW!! Click the link below or the Lulu link to your right! Us pirates at Six Ft. Swells Press are so thrilled to publish, Hell and High Water by Wolfgang Carstens, that we are hitting the rum hard in total celebration! To pre-atone for our drunken ways we are offering the book at a 25% DISCOUNT now until November 15th in honor of Wolfgang Carstens 25 years of matrimony, chronicled here in Hell and High Water.
The poems in Hell and High Water offer the gritty reality of a poet, husband, provider, father and shady romantic wrestling with life’s responsibilities and his own primal urges. From the familiar dinner table to disastrous family vacations and mail order sex toys, Wolfgang Carstens presents us with vulnerability, humor, rawness, regret and the rejoicing in twenty-five years of intimacy with another as no other poet can. Carstens has wickedly disguised Hell and High Water as a twisted yet tender guide for the rest of us in maintaining the wildness among minivans, mortgages and matrimony.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/wolfgang-carstens/hell-and-high-water/paperback/product-23385664.html
Filed under break up, Drinking, Giveaway, lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer's Block, Writing
Get prepared…the Swells are getting bigger….Hell and High Water by Wolfgang Carstens….update very soon….
Strange
it’s not
the big moments
in life
that terrify us,
but rather,
the small,
ordinary ones.
i can stand
in front of 300 people
and read poetry,
yet,
my knees shake
when i lean in close
and kiss you
goodnight.
–Wolfgang Carstens, Hell and High Water
Filed under lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
This is what it sounds like, take a listen to this interview with Wolfgang Carstens and Todd Cirillo by incredible interviewer, Marcia Epstein from Talk with ME. Poetry, publishing, Hell and High Water, partnerships, Six Ft. Swells and Epic Rites and many other joys are discussed. Enjoy
Filed under Drinking, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
The water is rising and the flames grow hotter as October 19th nears. Here is an early review of the book and a poem to get you through the weekend. Order information to follow.
Wolfgang Carstens promises “hell and high water” in his new book from Six Ft. Swells Press, and that’s exactly what you get. These poems blaze short and hot like matches, but baby, you’ll feel the burn; they both praise love and raise the level of pithy skewering to new heights. In Hell and High Water, whether he’s getting lucky (“i don’t write love poems”), or ruminating (“len,” “contrary”), Carstens remains true to himself and his sometimes dark, sometimes hilarious, episodic visions of life.—Dianne Borsenik, publisher of NightBallet Press, author of Age of Aquarius (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016)
instead of “Speed Bump,”
the sign read
“Speed Hump.”
“look Honey,”
my wife said,
laughing.
“finally,
a sport
you
can win.”
–Wolfgang Carstens, Hell and High Water
Filed under break up, Drinking, lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writing
On October 17th, Six Ft. Swells Press will release the next book in its acclaimed Top Shelf Poetry Series, Hell and High Water by Wolfgang Carstens. No matter how high the water mama or how hot the heat this book will kick the poetry world up a notch. Carstens offers a savage look into the essential life concepts of love, commitment, obligations, creativity, responsibilities, fatherhood, regret and the matrimonial benefits of good tequila. Hell and High Water, is about maintaining the wildness among minivans, mortgages and matrimony.
Wolfgang Carstens lives in Canada with his wife, five kids, grandson, dog, mortgage and death. His poetry is printed on the backs of paid bills. More information at http://www.wolfgangcarstens.com.
Order details to follow.
the human animal
possesses
an uncanny ability
to justify any action
after the fact:
if the devil didn’t make us do it,
we were drunk,
stoned
or temporarily
insane.
when all else fails
we blame it
on love.
Filed under break up, Drinking, lost love, Poetry, Publishing, Small Press, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, Writer's Block, Writing
Todd Cirillo
Julie Valin
Matt Amott
After Hours Poetry 