It’s official – Death in Common: Poems From Unlikely Victims edited by Rich Ristow and Vicious Romantic by Wrath James White are now live and ready for orders! In a few days, they’ll be live on Amazon.com and will be distributed out to other venues within weeks.

Congratulations to Rich Ristow, the DiC team, and to Wrath for his first poetry collection!

You can order directly from us: http://belfirepress.com/poetry/?page_id=31

or via our printer: Death in Common or Vicious Romantic

Or as of 6 a.m. today, from Amazon.com: Death in Common or Vicious Romantic

Pre-order either Vicious Romantic by Wrath James White or Death in Common: Poems From Unlikely Victims edited by Rich Ristow – now for only $7.99!

Friday & Saturday Super Sale – pre-order both books and receive free shipping!

Sale ends August 28th (release day) so get ‘em cheap, while you can!

Joe Nazare’s new webzine, Macabre Republic released today, and with it comes a wonderful interview with our very own editor, Rich Ristow!

Macabre Republic: Hello, Rich, and welcome to Macabre Republic. I’d like to start by talking about your book-length poem, Wood Life. I was really impressed by the range of the verse, in terms of the poetic modes adopted and structural patterns employed. From section to section of the poem, the verse seemed as varied as the mental/emotional states of your tormented speaker. How conscious were you of matching form to content in Wood Life? Also, in terms of the composition process: did you find there are any special challenges in writing a book-length poem?

Rich Ristow: Charles Olson and Robert Creeley both believed that content is but an extension of form, and I have to agree 100%. Basically, what you say and write is shaped by how you say or write it. This is why, for example, a sonnet in iambic pentameter sounds absolutely different than the drunken free verse of Charles Bukowski; one sounds lofty and elevated, and the other like the guy sitting one bar stool over–and I’m not saying that one is better than the other. Poetic forms are basically tools to achieve a desired end. For example, one wouldn’t use a scalpel to do the job of a hacksaw; so, one wouldn’t write a villanelle to achieve the minimalist juxtaposition of haiku, senryu, and tanka.

Read more here….

Awesome interview, Rich!