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West End Press
Publishing Voices
from the Margins
Beginning in December of 2008, West End Press launched The New Series of poetry, “full-length volumes by new and recently recognized poets.” So far six volumes have been produced by authors Marianne Broyles, Jason Yurcic, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Jenifer Rae Vernon, Sy Hoahwah, and Maisha Baton.
Three of the authors, Broyles, Yurcic, and Baton, live in the Albuquerque area, also the home for the last twenty-four years of West End Press. Two others, Mish and Hoahwah, are Oklahoma natives or long-time residents. Jenifer Vernon was raised in western Washington and is now teaching in Juneau, Alaska. All six writers come from working class backgrounds. Two identify as Native American, one is Chicano, and one is African American. All the writers are steeped in family and community history, though the stories they tell are often directed to the present.
Marianne Broyles’
The Red Window intersperses stories of her Cherokee upbringing and her life as a hospital worker with post-traumatic stress victims. Her engaged but considered responses to what she sees are evident in poems on subjects as diverse as Muslim workers on her family’s farm to her visit to the gravesite of a Cherokee ancestor.
In Work Is Love Made Visible, Mish takes her Okie family through several generations. Their struggle to survive in the face of poverty, exploitation and harassment, ending in resettlement away from the land, is augmented by bittersweet accounts of others who have endured the same struggles. Family photographs over a century reinforce her story.
Sy Hoahwah constructs a world half-fantasy, half-real in Velroy and the Madischie Mafia. In his home town in Oklahoma, Comanche and other Indian warriors of the past are reincarnated as young lawbreakers affiliated with casino owners on the reservation. Behind the violence and humor of his tale is a portrait of a people with past and present inextricably bound together.
Yurcic’s Odes to Anger is a story of conversion from a youth of violence and pain to a present in which work is balanced against his love of his children and his dedication to writing about the life and people he knows. His performance poetry draws from incidents in his stressful and dangerous life to demand respect and involvement from his audience.
Vernon’s Rock Candy begins with the often perplexing story of her family’s life in a logging town in Washington state. Descendants of Appalachian miners, her people find a way to survive against everyday threats of violence, poverty, and moral weakness. Her later poems reflect her departure from home and her struggle for dignity among strangers.
In her book Sketches Maisha Baton, a native of Pittsburgh who moved to Albuquerque, offers clean, clear portraits of the people known to her in her lifetime. With a discerning eye she presents unforgettable images of those she has encountered, from the street, from families in her neighborhood, and artists similar to herself.