news | Friday March 27, 2015

Two More Spring Books Have Arrived! The Shoplifters and page as bone ~ ink as blood

Hot off the presses, two more Spring 2015 Talonbooks have arrived: a poetry title and a drama title.

Jónína Kirton’s first collection of poetry with Talon is page as bone – ink as blood ($16.95) – “restorative, intimate poetry, drawing down ancestral ideas into the current moment’s breath” (Joanne Arnott). Loosely autobiographical, these are the weavings of a wagon-goddess who ventures into the double-world existence as a mixed-race woman. With this collection, Kirton adds her voice to the call for the kind of fierce honesty referred to by Muriel Rukeyser when she asked, What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.

And now, for something completely different, we give you Morris Panych’s latest play, The Shoplifters ($17.95), which takes a jab at a different sort of inequity. In this riotously funny new comedy, we meet Alma, a seasoned career shoplifter who prefers the five-finger discount over some lousy seniors’ day deal. But it’s not just an empty wallet that leads Alma to a life of petty crime – it’s also her strong convictions about social justice and economic equality. Panych’s comedy offers biting observations about society’s haves and have-nots and how much they might actually have in common.