At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
Susan Sontag

Publisher's Comments
Susan Sontag’s incisive intelligence, expressive brilliance and deep curiosity about art, politics and the writer’s responsibility to the world have secured her place as one of the most important thinkers and writers of the twentieth century. At the Same Time gathers sixteen essays written in the last years of Sontag’s life, which reflect on the personally liberating nature of literature, and on political activism as an ethical duty, and boldly address the dilemmas of post-9/11 America.

Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel
Anthony D. Robles
Illustrated by Carl Angel

Publisher's Comments
Grab your dancing shoes and join Lakas and a colorful cast of street performers as they capture the spirit of Makibaka—of struggle, hope, laughter, and song. This second Lakas book is a rollicking adventure celebrating the joys and heartache of one community, and a child’s power to make a difference.

The last thing Lakas expects one fine sunny day is to meet a group of tap-dancing, drum-beating, karaoke-singing new friends. But these friends face a crisis: the Makibaka Hotel, where they live, is about to be sold. They must pack their belongings and leave their home, unless… Lakas soon leads Tick A. Boom, Firefoot, and the Karaoke King in a spirited protest against their eviction. Before long the streets of the neighborhood are reverberating with the taps, raps, and chants of Makibaka.

Author Anthony D. Robles tells a gutsy tale about one boy’s empathy and activism, and their ability to revitalize a community. Incorporating photos of protest, illustrator Carl Angel’s paintings vibrate with the rhythm of the city. With a “coin toss” ending that will spark discussion among readers, standing up for what’s right has never been so much fun.

Kissing Dead Girls
Daphne Gottlieb

Publisher's Comments
Gertrude Stein's work is co-opted and re-imagined in an attempt to unravel the relationship between love and war; Walt Whitman makes a command performance in dismembered bits of forced, formal verse; and "The Exorcist" and "The Devil in Miss Jones" are sutured together in an attempt to locate the horror of desire. Fusing pornography and postfeminist theory, transcript and tell-all, these playful, penetrating poems and stories reach off the page in search of what it is to be known, both to the masses and to the "Other."

What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation
Edited by the South End Press Collective

Publisher's Comments
In August 2005, thousands of New Orleans residents—overwhelmingly poor, largely people of color, the majority black—were left to face one of the worst “natural” disasters in US history on their own. They were left to die in prisons, in nursing homes, and on the street. Survivors were criminalized as “looters” for struggling to obtain food, water, diapers, medicine, and other essentials of life that no one else could or would provide. As Katrina’s waters receded and the body count soared, an ugly truth (re)surfaced: The lives of those who are poor, who are vulnerable, and who are not white are not valued by the US government.

While commentators across the political spectrum, celebrities, and other observers expressed outrage that the US government would let this happen to Americans—even “those Americans”—millions outside of New Orleans live without adequate health insurance; clean air and water; decent education, housing, nutrition, health care, and work; and freedom from police brutality and state repression. And thousands are deported, displaced, and dying in prisons and illegal wars from coast to coast, gulf to gulf.

Short and accessible, this anthology, featuring such voices as Common Ground, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Suheir Hammad, Jordan Flaherty, and Ross Gelbspan, takes readers beyond the Superdome. It explores the complexity of this turning point in US history as representative of the nation’s direction and priorities.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition.

Embryoyo
Dean Young

Publisher's Comments
In this follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize–finalist collection Elegy on Toy Piano, Dean Young—one of the most individual poets of the past several decades, and with one of the most iconic voices in poetry today—once again sets about taking some cracks at the piñata of commonplace reality. No one is unsure if they’ve read a
poem by Dean Young. The power and sheer curiosity of the poems in this book leave a mark:

You are in your pajamas / eating cold pizza / when you decide
to make a coyote. / Now all you need is a pregnant coyote.
Darling, if you were here, I’d try / to lick your heart.
What happens when your head splits open / and the bird flies out, its two notes deranged?
All that a human is made of is gold, / very very little gold.
Imagine a frog / in your mouth, struggling. / Now imagine you’re that frog.
Why am I so afraid of nothingness? / My soul is a baby wolf.

Dean Young has published seven previous collections of poetry, most recently Elegy on Toy Piano, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Skid, a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.