​Self-Defense

Corey Mertes

A morally dubious chef reacts unconventionally when he comes to believe that his prized dog has killed the pet rabbit of the middle-school girl next door; an angry, second-rate actor seeks a life-affirming path in a place that offers only oddities and  dreams; two gamblers descend into chaos and despair; and a love affair between an aging Texas wildcatter and a mercurial art teacher at his son’s school goes tragically awry. Crackling with lyricism, hard-bitten truths, and soaring prose, the twelve stories in Corey Mertes’s Self-Defense follow their down-on-their-luck protagonists through life’s narrow passes to its snow-covered valleys below.

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To order directly from the press, email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

Praise for Self-Defense

“There’s no artifice to be found here. Mertes is the real deal, not so much writing stories as he is bringing them out of hiding as though by séance.” —Jeff Vande Zande, author of Rules of Order

"With striking prose and exactitude, Corey Mertes's Self-Defense follows a collection of strange, sad, but wholly unique characters through twelve unforgettable stories, all seeking a version of self-defense against their own demons and disappointments. A gritty but emotionally sensitive clutch of tales."—Kali White, author of The Monsters We Make

“The characters in Corey Mertes’s debut collection desperately try to defend themselves against the lure of drugs and booze and the scourges of illness and infidelity. Self-Defense may be full of failed dreams, but it is charged with memorable characters, whip-smart dialogue, and bleak landscapes rendered beautiful by the author’s lyrical prose.” —Rita Ciresi, author of Pink Slip and Sometimes I Dream in Italian

Reviews & Interviews

West Trade Review

The Appointed Hour

Susanne Davis

The Appointed Hour shines a compassionate light on a changing rural America, spanning generations and locations by exploring the emotions that accompany life’s trials. The heart-wrenching challenges draw Davis's characters together in feelings of love, loss, hope, and community, united throughout history by the place they call home.

Carolineleavittville The Day The Daily Campus (UConn) 

The Heroine's Circle

Gail Hanlon

Silent Letter, the masterful full-length debut from Gail Hanlon, centers around the idea of learning to navigate desire, uncertainty, and grief. In part through art and literature, and in part through alternative ways of knowing, divination, I Ching, Tarot, dreams, meditation, and ritual, Hanlon’s poems explore the natural world and the edges of memory, language, and consciousness. Breathtaking in its concision and stirring in its empathy, Silent Letter soars.

To pre-order (at a 20% discount), email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

Molly Fuller

Rather than seeking answers, Molly Fuller’s Always a Body calls into question the goal of answers, of the idea of linear and logical paths to answers; her poems seek, instead, to replace static answers with a desire to discover meaning through the dynamic of poetic searching. The poems work toward a language that can be used to come to terms with loss through the exploding and re-making of metaphor and what is expected from formal structures of languaging/poetics. Fuller pushes at the confines both of language and the themes of loss, so that the individual and the cosmos converge, creating tensions between what is unified and what is divergent, between other and self, and about the pains and the pleasures of the body, always the body.

To pre-order (at a 20% discount), email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

Catherine Kyle​​​

Named for the glassy, mazelike structures that can form underground when lightning strikes sand, Fulgurite weaves together reality and myth. Informed by fairy tales, domestic fabulism, and environmental concerns, Catherine Kyle examines gender on large and small scales. Patriarchal influences in domestic spaces are compared to patriarchal influences on national and global levels, and identity is made complex by the fusion of survival, dissociation, and promise. The collection bears witness to the grief of the everyday while simultaneously pursuing hope.

To pre-order (at a 20% discount), email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

​Bo​wed As If Laden With Snow

Megan Wildhood

Over the course of the eighty-one poems that make up Bowed As If Laden With Snow, Megan Wildhood considers humanity’s climate crisis in parallel with the personal experience of divorce from the perspective of someone who has felt alienated and abandoned by the environmental movement. Still as madly in love with nature as she is with human beings, Wildhood showcases incredible range with heart, humanity, and hope.

To pre-order (at a 20% discount), email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

“Megan Wildhood gives unwavering honor to what falters and dies—and with this, she offers hope in radical accompaniment with whatever may befall us.” —Candace Tkachuck, reparational activist and writer

“For Megan Wildhood, life hasn’t gone unnoticed. . . . by her poems I’m not just moved, but transported, transformed.” —Don Haggerty, poet and painter

Jenifer DeBellis

New Wilderness takes readers through the nuances of raising a mentally ill child whose young adult brain cancer experiences transport this daughter and mother into an uncharted wilderness. With little more than a demagnetized compass and crayon-drawn treasure map, the daughter travels deeper into wastelands. Four states away, her mom charts a new topography to smuggle her back to civilization. The poems in this collection build on a triangulated path that moves between life before, during, and after cancer. Despite compounding loss, disappointment, and destruction, Jenifer DeBellis’s versified narratives reveal that paths forged with love can lead even the wildest creatures out of bewildering terrain.

“Yes, this collection has fortitude and resilience in spades, but DeBellis arrives at these only after meticulously surveying the wreckage that illness makes of good intentions…Not an easy read, New Wilderness, but one that…leaves us with a blueprint for bearing the slings and arrows of any human life.” —Iain Haley Pollock, author of Ghost, like a Place

“The real splendor of New Wilderness is in the variety of beautifully crafted poetic forms; poems which themselves are objects of rescue, for they bring order to all the contextual turmoil. I could not put this book of valorous verse down.” —Joy Gaines-Friedler, author of Capture Theory

“DeBellis’s use of image, humor and irony…allows readers to navigate emotional highs and lows of mental/physical health as a survivor would and, hopefully, understand the unique power of women, of mothers and of poetry.”—Brad Johnson, author of Smuggling Elephants Through Airport Security​

Linda Nemec Foster

Linda Nemec Foster's collection of prose poems is a reflection of the world before COVID. All of the pieces are inspired by other parts of the world—Istanbul, Rome, Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Seville—not the familiar landscape of the United States. But, the narrator is definitely not a native of these countries; they are “the other,” “the foreigner,” the American with a distinct Midwest sensibility who is trying to make sense of a world on the brink of an unforeseen catastrophe. The world as we used to know it. 

Sharon White

At the intersection of poetry and prose, Sharon White's The Body Is Burden and Delight examines ecological communities in fragile northern Landscapes, and in the geography of the poet's daily life. Moving from Denmark and Sweden, to Lithuania, Shetland, and Wales, White explores the inner landscape of myth and dreams inspired by a deep connection to the earth, and the beauty and loss inherent in those ecosystems. 

Heather Bourbeau

Exploring histories forgotten or often overlooked, Heather Bourbeau's Monarch is a powerful poetic memoir of the American West. Focused on the people and events that shaped California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, Bourbeau crafts a regional history that counteracts the simple narratives we are told and taught. Epic, personal, and compelling, Monarch impacts how we see each other and how we see our shared environment.

​Bibliography_Monarch.pdf

Teaching Guide_Monarch.pdf

​Not Just the Fire

R.B. Simon

In her powerful debut, R.B. Simon confronts subjects that we often dare not talk about in our daily lives, topics we shy away from in our water-cooler conversations. From miscarriage to addiction and overdose, and from bullying and racism to mental illness and eating disorders, nothing is off limits. Ultimately, Not Just the Fire is a story of resiliency. Weaving a narrative of overcoming in a world often harsh and unfair, the narrator returns again and again to the hope of “the blessed new day.”

​The Walk to Cefalù

Lynne Viti

Moving and life-affirming, The Walk to Cefalù moves the reader through the family history that Lynne Viti imagines, embellishes, or even invents out of whole cloth, and into young adulthood and coming of age. Striving for universality, Viti creates a durable sense of a speaker limited by an outside force that she constantly has to find ways around, or through, to contentment and ease. Even when limited by separation or loss, her walk inspires us to reach higher.

To order directly from the press, email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

Dokubo Melford Goodhead

Weaving factual and fictional stories about the lives of his loved ones, and those he looks to for strength, Dokubo Melford Goodhead’s Mourning is a meditation on the magnitude of loss. Powerful, raw, and elegiac, Goodhead’s collection is also a commentary on the plight of the Ijaw island people of the oil archipelago of the Niger Delta region of post-colonial Nigeria, where the country gets almost all of its revenue through the mining of oil and gas. Doubling as memoir and poetic exploration, Mourning sets its sights on nothing less than the human soul, and what we must do to protect it.

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To order directly from the press, email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

New and Selected Poems

Mary Catherine Harper

In The Found Object Imagines a Life: New and Selected Poems, Mary Catherine Harper collects some of her most personal and poignant poems. With precision and gravity, Harper explores a High Plains family struggling with loss, the cracks and fissures of human love, and the celebration and wonder that are part of the human process of living in and through language. Our inner landscapes, outer desires, and complicated triumphs find a home in Harper’s first full-length collection.

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To order directly from the press, email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

The Crescent-News (OH) FUMFA Poets and Writers Live

​Naming the Ghost

Emily Hockaday

​Messengers of the Gods: 

New and Selected Poems

Kathryn Gahl

Moving and mysterious, the poems in Messengers of the Gods: New and Selected Poems by Kathryn Gahl have such a nice beat, you can dance to them—even if you have two left feet. Let layers of life draw you in—lovers, fondue, a wafer moon, even bee hives—as Gahl hears the scramble of time and catches each beat. Join her. 

Midwest Book Review Mistress of the House of Books

​After the 8-Ball

Colleen Alles

Reply hazy, try again. All the poems in After the 8-Ball want answers, and so have thrown themselves at the mercy of a black plastic 8-Ball ­filled with dark blue alcohol and a tiny twenty-sided die. Love, loss, and Lake Michigan feature prominently in this debut collection from Colleen Alles, who examines everyday life in the Midwest with precision and depth. From the hound asleep in the sun to the pebbles lined up in the sill of a window facing west, these poems stand ready to accept whatever the 8-ball has in store, hoping, always, for, As I see it, yes.

Ecce Signum

​Careful Cartography

Devon Bohm

​Broken On the Wheel

Barbara Costas-Biggs

Praise for Broken On the Wheel

​Sparks and Disperses

Cathleen Cohen

The poems in Cathleen Cohen’s Sparks and Disperses reckon with contemporary life through the perspective of visual artists. Drawing on an ancient Kabbalistic myth of the “shattering of vessels,” Cohen explores issues of fracture, healing, and creation; the challenges of poverty, isolation, and the pandemic; and how we can find meaning and joy through artmaking. By building a poetic mural made of cracked ceramics, household items and glass shards, Cohen promotes healing through continuity and hope.

Praise for Sparks and Disperses

“These poems gather up the sensuous fruit, the curiosity and grace of the poet’s living.” —Yolanda Wisher, author of Monk Eats an Afro, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate, 2016-2017

“Sparks and Disperses touches reality and, by this actual touching, reveals life in its exquisite brilliance and raw distress.” —John Fox, The Institute for Poetic Medicine

Reviews & Interviews

Readers' Favorite Poetry Online Radio BookLife Review 

The Reading Bud Midwest Book Review 

New and Selected Poems

Margaret Rozga

In Holding My Selves Together: New and Selected Poems, her fifth volume of poetry, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Margaret Rozga brings together some of her best-loved poems about Milwaukee’s fair housing marches and her concern for issues of peace and social justice, with new poems that identify with Alice in Wonderland and imagine new Alice adventures. New poems also grapple with issues of recent political turmoil and pandemic-induced uncertainty. These deeply written poems find in language the glue that may hold our selves together.

*HONORABLE MENTION, Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, 2021

Praise for Holding My Selves Together

“Rozga’s newest collection is deliciously dizzying, like a lakeside summer at the peak of day. Fiery, hazy, warm, and refuge, these pieces offer a generous scope of Rozga’s voice, views, and celebrations of the everyday.” —Dasha Kelly Hamilton, 2021-2022 Wisconsin Poet Laureate

“Sorrow, despair, hope, rage, tenacity, faith. It’s all here, as it should be—Rozga’s poetry is an honest grappling with what it takes to fight for a better world.” —Nikki Wallschlaeger, author of Waterbaby

"Margaret Rozga's Holding My Selves Together: New and Selected Poems is a master class in poetry: its movement, its tension, its bafflement, its power. As I read, I found myself speaking lines out loud, for the enjoyment of their brokenness. . . . I will return to Holding My Selves Together to hear these prayers again." —Jennifer Martelli, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry

Reviews & Interviews

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Highland Park Poetry  Madison Book Beat

Wisconsin People & Ideas Sundress Publications 

Madison Public Library Arts + Literature Laboratory

Lost and Found Departments

Heather Dubrow

Lost and Found Departments explores the intersections and tensions among many  types of loss and, sometimes, recovery—of words, of people, of memories, of literary genres. Ranging from found poetry and monologues, to reimagined forms and poems of loss and recovery, Heather Dubrow’s collection challenges readers to see beyond the surface of the everyday. With these witty, intelligent, and humane poems, Dubrow encourages us to see and discover the world around us as more than static or mechanistic. To her, the world is poetry.

Kenyon Review Battery Journal

The Almost-Children

Cassondra Windwalker

Uncovering heartbreak and hope, Cassondra Windwalker takes us on a journey deep into the human heart, set against the backdrop of a beautiful natural world. Her poems are filled with pain and redemption, force and forgiveness, and the responsibility of love. Intense in its imagery, graceful in its style, and keen to the matters of the heart, The Almost-Children will haunt you, heal you, and lift you up. 

Praise for The Almost-Children

“With taut, beautiful, and oft-haunting prose, Cassondra Windwalker gives us a book of unforgettable poetry that burrows into your heart and mind in equal measure.” —Seven Jane, author of The Isle of Gold

“The Almost-Children is filled with raw emotion, eloquently expressed through Ms. Windwalker’s poetic style. The images evoked by these poems will stay with me for years to come.” —Lanie Goodell, author of Salvagium

The Wisconsin Idea

Charles McCarthy

Edited by Ross K. Tangedal and Jeff Snowbarger

Charles McCarthy’s The Wisconsin Idea, originally published in 1912, made the phrase “the Wisconsin idea” famous throughout the state and the country. Grounded in thorough research, meticulous detail, and a steadfast belief in the public good, the book is an important historical document of the state of Wisconsin, the Midwest, and the United States. McCarthy’s chronicle of progressive state craft in practice charges those in government to invest in “hope, health, happiness, and justice,” in order to build up, rather than exploit, the resources (both human and natural) of the country, that we may truly prosper as a free people.

This new edition, with informative annotations for contemporary readers, is a must read for scholars and students of progressivism at the turn of the nineteenth century, as well as a must own for those who believe in the power and responsibility of the Wisconsin Idea.

To order directly from the press, please email cornerstone.press@uwsp.edu

Review

Middle West Review

​Ecological Reflections on Post-Capitalist Society

Clint Jones

Ecological Reflections provides an intellectual roadmap for deciphering the difficulties facing civilization confronted by the destabilization of late stage capitalism. Drawing upon a variety of resources, Dr. Clint Jones argues that it is of vital importance that traditional ideas about the human-nature divide be systematically broken down, not merely along the typical socio-political divides of race, class, and gender, but at deeper ontological and metaphysical levels.

North Meridian Review 

​The Great Cat Nap

A.M. Bostwick
Publication Date:  2013

Ace is a hard-core newspaper reporter. He's tenacious, confident, and assertive. He's also a cat. When the famous show cat Ruby the Russian goes missing, Ace is on the story. But Ace bites off more than he can chew when he agrees to play detective and find the show cat, believed to have been stolen by animal smugglers. He'll need to call on help from his feline friends, a few dogs, and even a boastful rat nemesis in order to solve this mystery.

​Syncopation

Elizabeth Caulfield Felt
Publication Date:  2012

​Fugitive from Spanish Fascism: A Memoir by Miguel Domínguez Soler

Translated and with an Introduction by Richard Barker
Publication Date:  2010

Your Annotated, Illustrated College Survival Guide, Volume I