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PRESS RELEASE DATE:
December 1 2003
Birnham Wood Graphics PO Box 114 Northport NY 11768 [log in to unmask]
www.poetrybay.com
631-427-1950
SWIMMING THROUGH WATER
New Book of Poems by George Wallace
Italian translations by Anny Ballardini, CD with David Amram
BOOK RELEASE DATE: January 1, 2003
"...one of Long Island's most prolific and talented
poets...may be a frontrunner for Suffolk County Poet Laureate..." Ron
DeGennaro, New York Times
"A Masterpiece Collection" Richard Schiff, NYC NY,
Greenwich Village Gazette
Swimming Through Water, a 420-page book of poems by American
author George Wallace published by La Finestra Editrice, Trento Italy, will be
released to the general public on January 1, 2003.
The book features 181 poems by Wallace with accompanying
translations into Italian by Anny Ballardini. An interview with Wallace - as
well as introductions to the collection by Paolo Ruffilli, Marco Albertazzi,
David Amram, Mary de Rachewiltz and Ballardini - is also included in the
handsomely produced full-length book. In the deluxe edition, available in
America through Writers Unlimited (www.poetrydoctor.org), and on the Italian
market in the best book-shops, is a ten-cut CD of Wallace reading poems from
the collection accompanied by world renowned composer Amram.
The text has already received high
praise in pre-publication review and has been selected for classroom use at
Oxford College, England and in provincial school libraries in South Tyrol.
Neeli Cherkovski, biographer of Charles
Bukowski, calls Wallace's poetry "Quite simply beautiful... interior lyric
rides the waves and wave lengths of his consciousness." Mary de
Rachewiltz, daughter of Ezra Pound and a noted literature scholar, calls the
work "literature in the right sense, 'news that stay news,' and compares
Wallace's reading style to e e cummings. "He tweaks the Enigma in his
stop-anywhere approach," notes Charles Plymell, Bohemian author and
publisher of the original Zap magazines. "(Wallace is) a Max Ernst stuck
on the elevator of up and down history. A Post-Existential Enigmast." And
Marzio Pieri, Italian Philology Chair at Parma, calls Wallace "a necessary
poet today, as few, as maybe no other."
George Wallace is an
award winning poet and journalist living and working in Huntington NY. Winner
of the CW Post Poetry Prize, Wallace is a primary force behind numerous poetry
journals, anthologies, reading series, radio and television poetry programs. He
is the author of six chapbooks of poetry and serves on the editorial boards of
Poetrybay, Polarity, Xanadu, Long Island Quarterly.
His fifth chapbook of poems, The Poems of Augie Prime was
published by Writers Ink in the summer of 1999, and was nominated for a
Pushcart Prize. In 2001 his poetry was selected and published in booklet form
for the State of California 150th anniversary sesquicentennial program. He is
co-host of the Poetrybrook USA Radio Show (www.wusb.org), and organizer of the
4-city marathon reading of Jack Kerouac's Big Sur.
A nationwide tour of Swimming Through Water will commence in the
United States this month with appearances at the Bowery Poetry Club, January
5th, in New York City; and Book Revue in Huntington NY, January 29th.
Anny Ballardini,
translator, poet and journalist is active with several publications both in
English and in Italian. From Mary de Rachewiltz's comment: "(Ballardini)
has understood that in the verses by Wallace there is always something which is
- going to happen - and she alerts the reader to keep eyes and ears well
open..."
SWIMMING THROUGH WATER Poems by George Wallace with Italian translations
by Anny Ballardini ISBN 88-88097-17-1
PUBLISHER: La Finestra, Trento Italy DISTRIBUTOR: Writers Unlimited
(www.poetrydoctor.org PO Box 2344 Selden NY 11734-0749)
420 pp, deluxe edition with cd, LIST PRICE $36
For interviews, review copies, or booking information contact [log in to unmask]