Poetry. Paper, Perfect Bound. 74 pages 2017, ISBN: 978-1-936419-74-6 $15.95 & S&H Note: You don’t have to have a PayPal account in order to use the PayPal button, just a credit card. Distant Music by John Palen is available for Kindle here. The poems in John Palen’s Distant Music inhabit a harsh Midwestern America of…
PROSE, POETRY, MUSIC Saturday September 22nd at INDI GO Two East Central Illinois writers and a singer-songwriter perform Saturday night at Indi Go Arts Co-Op, 9 E. University, Champaign. Roxane Gay, Lania Knight and John Palen will read from their works in the 8 p.m. event. Jeff Arrigo will sing and play guitar. There is…
Fiction. Paper, Perfect Bound. 58pp. $13.95 plus S&H 2012, ISBN 978-1-936419-09-8 Small Economies’s short stories and flash fictions are economical in narration but comprehensive in their suggestion of the past, present, and future lives of their characters. The moments they contain are set against the background of diverse public spaces: the institutions, stores, factories, restaurants,…
Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 78 pp. $14.95 plus s&h 2008, ISBN 978-0932412-683 Greenhouse: The First 5 Years of the Rustbelt Roethke Writers’ Workshop Edited by Judith Kerman & Amee Schmidt The Rustbelt Roethke Writers’ Workshop/Retreat was inspired by the work and life of Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Theodore Roethke (1908-1963), who was born and brought up in…
Poetry. Paper, perfect bound, 98 pp $16 plus s&h 2005, ISBN-0-932412-31-9 This selection, reaching back twenty years, establishes John Palen’s quiet eloquence in poems which convey a deep, straightforward honesty about the fumblings, failures and occasional radiance of human life. Prurience by John Palen “It’s like playing the slots,” my doctor says. “The right allergens…
Poetry. Paper, saddlestitched, 28 pp $6 plus s&h 1997, ISBN-0-932412-11-4 These poems, as with any real poetry, make us see in new and deeper ways. Most of the works involve common feelings or occurances that we do not normally deem significant or beautiful. John’s elegant use of words brings out that beauty (not always a…
