| With this issue of the Poetic Matrix periodic letteR we change to a new online format intended to take advantage of the unique opportunities of the internet for putting good poetry out into the world and to do it where the cost makes sense. Cost for a small press like ours is, alas, important. Poetic Matrix is a small press that has as one of its peculiarities the ups and downs of this kind of small hands on endeavor. 2003 was a year to identify our direction and begin the move to producing full size perfect bound books of poetry and find what we might look like into the future. We published Classrooms of Poets edited by Brandon Cesmat and Joe Milosch and also Brandon Cesmat book Driven into the Shade. In 2004 we continued to advance our vision for Poetic Matrix Press, publishing James Downs’ new work Merge with the river and began work on Gail Entrekin’s book Change (will do you good). Poetic Matrix Press started by producing a periodic letteR on the poetic experience in 1997 and, with a call for manuscripts in 1999 that saw 100 poets from all over the country and some foreign countries as well respond, we picked 2 manuscripts to publish in the Year 2000 Chapbook Series: Jeff Mann’s Mountain Fireflies and Grace Marie Grafton’s ZERO. Jeff’s Chapbook has found its way into collections and Journals on the Appalachian region that so permeates Jeff’s work. An excellent review appeared in the Journal of Appalachian Studies out of Marshall University in Huntington West Virginia by Susan O’Dell Underwood of Carson-Newman College. Grace Grafton, after publishing her first book with us, has gone on to publish Visiting Sisters with Coracle Books in Berkeley California. It is a beautiful book by a poet who is daring and has the poetic craft to pull it off. Also in 2000 we published James Downs’ Chapbook Where Manzanita and this publisher’s chapbook uzumite, both books centered on our Yosemite experience. James continues living and working in Yosemite where in 2004 he completed his new volume Merge with the river. 2001 saw the call for manuscripts for the 2001 Chapbook Series. Many very good manuscripts make choosing difficult but we did and began publication on Anthony Russell White’s The Last Known Photograph of Daphne and Kathryn Kruger’s Solstice. Solstice was done with perfect binding launching our perfect bound books. Also published was London poet Joan Michelson’s beautiful chapbook Letting in the Light written around the death of her husband. Letting in the Light received a nice review in Second Light out of London. In July of 2002, with the help of Grace Grafton in San Francisco, Poetic Matrix hosted a reading at Barnes & Noble Book Store in Berkeley that brought Joan Michelson from London, Kathryn Kruger from Illinois, James Downs from Yosemite National Park, and Grace Grafton and Tony White from the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides an enjoyable reading we had the opportunity to get to know each other and meet some of the poets we had only conversed with by phone and email while producing their books. Since 1999 Poetic Matrix Press has worked with WORD Performance, James Downs’ performance program in Yosemite, assisting with programs and bringing poets to the program. Grace Grafton, Tony White, Brandon Cesmat, and Jack Seileman have added their voice and work to a fine community program. We look forward to more events of this sort in the future. Poetic Matrix collaborated with Brandon Cesmat and the California Poets in the Schools San Diego on the publication of Classrooms of Poets an Anthology and Guide to California Poets in the Schools. This is a perfect volume for classroom teachers who want to know more about how to integrate poetry into the classroom. Poetic Matrix has been busy developing on other fronts as well including this online periodic letteR. Our website, www.poeticmatrix.com, archives reprints of past periodic letteRs and poetry from current releases, and as hosts information on chapbooks, full-length poetry books with order information. We began a Book Partners project this year assisting other independent publications in their circulation. Rayn Roberts 2 books; Jazz Cocktails and Soapbox Songs and The Fires of Spring; Exaggerated Gender Signals by Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña; YAZOO CITY BLUES by Tomás Gayton; Second Skin by Terry Hertzler; and STAINED GLASS by ARIELE RUTH BROOKS. We invite you to look at these books. Along with James Downs and Devon Peterson we have begun a Book Donation Project. 70 books were donated to Yosemite Institute, Yosemite National Park. Yosemite Institute brings over 2000 young people to the Park each year and exposes them to the Park’s beauty and wilderness with a focus on environmental issues. The copies of Yosemite poet James Downs’ Merge with the river will be used by instructors in developing curriculum allowing these young people to read good poetry that reflects the specific issues that they are dealing with in the Institute programs. 35 copies each of Merge with the river; Driven into the Shade by 2003 San Diego Book Award for Poetry winner Brandon Cesmat; and Poetic Matrix publisher John Peterson’s dark hills and wild mountains were donated to Madera Union High School, Madera California through English teacher Darren Klassen for use in English classes throughout the Madera High School English program. Placing books in the hands of High School students through teachers that have a passion for poetry will have a strong influence on their future as readers of serious poetry. Copies of Brandon Cesmat’s Driven into the Shade will be donated to a youth group in rural San Diego County in the near future– conversations are taking place. Also, interest has been show by an elementary school in Stockton for Merge with the river and possibly Yosemite Elementary School as well. We are currently looking for other programs to place these printer seconds as a way to expose young readers to quality poetry. Our initial focus has been on placing printer seconds because we had these books sitting in boxes doing no one any good. While continuing this focus we hope to expand to first run copies in the future. For all those who have communicated with Poetic Matrix thank you for your interest, there is more to come. We publish poetry to join with the best that a culture has; this is a challenge in the present environment. We invite you to assist this effort by purchasing one of our books. John |