CRUX #1

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of Compline’s CRUX series. CRUX chapbooks are short, urgent interventions produced using only the materials at hand. Despite featuring elegant letterpress covers, they are produced and distributed for free (and will always be free!).

I’m honored to count CJ Martin’s incredible and devastating poem LAND as the series’ opening gambit. I found this poem so moving and technically interesting that I was compelled to share it with as many people as possible, especially given the endless and monotonous debates about poetry’s efficacy (or lack thereof).

I will not mail these books as the cost of shipping would make this project untenable, but you can get one from me in person at Compline HQ (2556 Frances St., Oakland), at a reading in the Bay Area, at a distribution site in the Bay Area (see list below), or you can ask for one when you order another Compline book.

That said, in an attempt to get them in as many hands as possible, I’m partnering with friends across the country (and internationally!) to help distribute them outside the Bay Area. As a result, I’ve established “distribution sites” in most of the major poetry centers across the country to ensure that they’re readily available (while remaining free). As a result, CRUX books can now be had via the following bookstores, reading series, art spaces, and roving human distribution sites. When you pick one up, please thank our friends for their help, and let me know if you’d like to help distribute these in your city. CRUX books are currently available (or will soon be available) here:

San Francisco: The Green Arcade
Oakland: The Bay Area Public School
Berkeley: Small Press Distribution
L.A.: Poetic Research Bureau
Portland: Spare Room Reading Series (c/o David Abel)
Olympia: (c/o David Wolach)
Seattle: (c/o Robert Mittenthal)
Vancouver: (c/o Stephen Collis & Amy De’ath)
Salt Lake City: (c/o Craig Dworkin)
Austin: (c/o Kyle Schlesinger)
Colorado Springs: Say Hello to Your Last Poem! Reading Series
Pittsburgh: (c/o Charles Legere)
Milwaukee: Woodland Pattern
Princeton: (c/o Orlando Reade)
Brooklyn: Unnameable Books
Brooklyn: Berl’s Poetry Shop
Providence: (c/o Kit Schluter)
Northampton: Flying Object
Boston: (c/o Boyd Nielson)
Maine-ish: (c/o Rich Owens)
United Kingdom: (c/o Sean Bonney & Frances Kruk)