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Parallel Press releases Anna, washing by Ted Genoways
Posted 12/3/2001
MADISON,
WIS.--Poet Ted Genoways evokes the stark
loneliness and hard-scrabble survival
of life in early twentieth-century Klondike
in Anna, washing, the latest release
from the Parallel
Press. In
this 16-piece collection, Genoways imagines
the life of two Finnish immigrants to
the Klondike in 1897.
A chapbook is a small-format literary work, usually of poetry or essays. The chapbooks are published by the Parallel Press, an imprint of the UW-Madison libraries. This chapbook marks the 16th release for the press.
Anna, washing was inspired by Genoways's travels to Alaska in 1996, where he visited the village Eagle, along the Yukon River. There he learned of the story of Anna Malm, an immigrant woman credited with opening Alaska's first laundry. This collection captures moments in the lives of Anna and her husband, Abe.
Genoways received a bachelor's degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University, a master's from Texas Tech University, and a master's of Fine Arts from the University of Virginia.
Genoways is the author of Bullroarer, selected by Marilyn Hacker for the 2001 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize. He has written two previous chapbooks, The Dead Have a Way of Returning and The Cow Caught in the Ice. Genoways is the editor of The Selected Poems of Miguel Hernàndez and Burning the Hymnal: The Uncollected Poems of William Kloefkorn. He lives in Minneapolis.
Genoways is a two-time winner of the Guy Owen Poetry Prize from Southern Poetry Review. Five of the sonnets in Anna, washing were selected by Linda Bierds to receive the Klondike Goldrush Centennial Committee Award in Poetry. His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, DoubleTake, New England Review, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, and Virginia Quarterly Review.
Here's a sample poem from Anna, washing:
Anna on the Beach
Dyea, Alaska, Oct-1897
Broken crates rim the leeshore like driftwood.
Men scramble, clumsy as crabs, to rescue
their outfits from the coming tide. Where Abe stood
minutes before, a man--sunk in his boots--
clings to a tipped platform: his year's ration
(sacks of flour, dried soup, lard) skims atop
the undertow. On shore: Anna, washing,
whittling lye soap into melted ice, chopped
from the stream bank. Abe haggles with packers
over price per pound. From a man, beaten
and bound for home, he buys an old pack-horse.
Anna hangs pants on tent lines to freeze them
stiff and dry. She loads her washing machine:
ten thousand men--just me to keep them clean--
Each Parallel Press chapbook is $10; annual subscriptions for six are $50. Titles may be ordered by writing:
The Parallel Press
372 Memorial Library
728 State St.
Madison, WI 53706
For information, see their Web site at http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu, or phone (608) 262-2600. E-mail inquiries may be sent to kfrazier@library.wisc.edu.
