"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. "
~Ernest Hemingway

ABOUT THE PRESS

ČERVENÁ BARVA PRESS was founded in April of 2005. The press solicits poetry, fiction, and plays from various writers around the world, and holds open contests regularly for its chapbooks, postcards, broadsides and full-length books. I look for work that has a strong voice, is unique, and that takes risks with language. Please see submission guidelines for current information. I encourage queries from Central and Eastern Europe

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Gloria Mindock

Gloria Mindock is editor and publisher of Červená Barva Press. In 2007, she took over as editor of the Istanbul Literary Review, an online journal based in Turkey. In 2010, she co-founded an experimental journal, X Peri, with Irene Koronas.

She is the author of two chapbooks, Doppelganger (S. Press), Oh Angel (U Šoku Štampa) and is the author of three books, Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson St. Press, 2007), Nothing Divine Here (U Šoku Štampa, 2010), and La Portile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, Romania, 2010), translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma.

Gloria has been published in numerous journals including River Styx, Phoebe, Poet Lore, Blackbox, Ibbetson St., WHLR, Poesia, Arabesques, and Bogg. In Romania, her poems can be found in UNU: Revistă de Cultură, Gând Românesc, Citadela and the anthology Murmur of Voices (Cogito Press) with translation by Flavia Cosma. Other anthologies include: Bagel With the Bards No.1 and No. 2, WHLR Anthology # 1, and City Lights.

Recently, she was interviewed by Luis R. Calvo and Flavia Cosma in the literary magazine, Generación Abierta (Buenos Aires, Argentina). The interview was translated into Spanish by Flavia Cosma.

Gloria has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, St. Botolph Award and was awarded a fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council.

From 1984-1994, she edited the Boston Literary Review/BLuR and was co-founder of Theatre S & S. Press, Inc. Theatre S. received grants from the Polaroid Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Globe Foundation, New England for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Somerville Arts Council.

With an extensive background in theatre, Gloria has written and performed numerous performance pieces including BIG BOMB BUICKS, WHERE DID ALL THOSE BIRDS AND DOGS COME FROM?, I WISH FRANCISCO FRANCO WOULD LOVE ME, and SKIN CELLS, MAGGOTS, AND OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST. Her poetry collection called Doppelganger was a text of a theatre piece of the same name performed by THEATRE S. A review by STAGES stated she took great liberties with Poe and "captured the romantic desperation of "William Wilson," a tale of self-destructive double-identity."

Gloria has performed, acted, composed music, and sang in the theatre. Her newest performance piece is called WALKING IN El SALVADOR. Gloria works as a Social Worker and freelances editing manuscripts and conducting workshops for writers.

Gloria Mindock's Website is currently under construction.

Nothing Divine Here by Gloria Mindock
U Šoku Štampa Press, 2010

Gloria Mindock is the author of the forthcoming book, La Porile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, 2010, Romania) and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson Street Press, 2007). She is editor of Cervena Barva Press and the Istanbul Literature Review, an online journal based in Istanbul, Turkey. She has had numerous publications including Poet Lore, River Styx, Phoebe, Blackbox, Poesia, Bogg, Ibbetson, WHLR, UNU: Revista de Cultura, Citadela, Aurora, and Arabesques. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, St. Botolph Award, and was awarded a fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council distributed by the Somerville Arts Council.

---

From the Preface

Passionate and rebellious, Gloria Mindock’s poetry jumps forcefully from the page, grabs the reader by the collar of his coat and holds and hangs on to his/her attention.

In unison with the poet’s heart, the nature of things is in big turmoil here, forever searching for the elusive Divine Harmony, the only force capable of rearranging the world into one of love and understanding.

In a perpetual state of sadness and grief, these poems descend to the very core of the raw discourse of the soul, devoid of artifice and pose. The stark simplicity of their statement disarms us and leaves us vulnerable in front of the bitter reality of life.
—Flavia Cosma, author of seventeen books of poetry, a novel, a travel memoir, and four books for children

The stunning thing about Mindock’s work is its overwhelming sense of the real world in real time. It’s “poetic” in its own way, well-crafted, agile, nicely balanced, but in terms of content, you move into Mindock’s world and you’re suddenly in a basic, essential reality that hardly anyone in the poetry world touches: “I see your skull veiled by a cloud/Eyelids sunk/Hands pressed on knees/Heart gone/A sight of secrets//I think living is brave/Death is a release/The dog knows -- heaven is nothing but a frill.” (“Dog Dance,” p.41). An interesting mixture of existential toughness crowned by an ultimate sense of final nothingness.

It’s interesting how Mindock’s world-view combines a dispairing sense of expanding out into the horrific Now with a vision of everything eventually dissolving into nothingness: “Living on this earth is/one big nightmare.,/This landscape frightens me./Too much death./Think about it.//I refuse to fall short of detail so/ here it is: Death of emotion/Death of love/Death of skin...//I’m going away to where I really belong./To me, this is uplifting.” (“Aftermath,” p.63).

Very few style-games here. This is poetry as a minimalist Declaration of Finality. And the very fact that Mindock doesn’t play style-games makes her vision a thousand times more effective/powerful than the word-game players who turn poetry into a kind of syntactical basketball.
—Hugh Fox

In Nothing Divine Here, Mindock invokes a resurrection, the power of love to spring eternal from the hurt we all know. She looks at the personal and the political, that haunting polarity, and weaves a gentle but brave hopefulness between them.
—Afaa Michael Weaver, Simmons College

Gloria Mindock is a fearless poet. She gets right in the face, in the very nostril of death. She confronts her past lovers, her dreams, dashed or otherwise, not with cool detachment, but with a visceral lyrical and emotional engagement. She has made her pain into high art, into the high holy. Mindock, is a force to be reckoned with, so watch your back!
—Doug Holder, Arts Editor The Somerville News, Founder Ibbetson Street Press

---

Review by Michael Parker at Unlikely Stories: http://www.unlikelystories.org/blog/

$15.00 | ISBN: 978-0-578-04760-7 | 87 Pages | In Stock

Blood Soaked Dresses by Gloria Mindock
Ibbetson Street Press, 2007

In her fascinating poem cycle, Gloria Mindock jolts back into memory the roots of El Salvador's present day violence. Mindock coaxes to the page the voices of the dead who lie, less in peace, than in restless obsession with the atrocities they suffered. She brings forth as well the voices of the living who seem startled to find that they died somewhere between the horrors they witnessed and the grave they have yet to lie down in. Blood Soaked Dresses is a beautiful, harrowing first book.
--Catherine Sasanov

Order at Lulu.com: http://www.lulu.com/content/1172519

Also available at Grolier Poetry Bookstore in Cambridge, MA., and can be ordered online at: Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and Powells.

For signed copies: order directly from the author at: P.O. Box 440357, W. Somerville, MA 02144-3222 ($13.50 plus $3.00 S/H)

---

"El Salvador, 1983" was translated into Serbian by Berislav Blagojevic:
http://hiperboreja.blogspot.com/2011/05/el-salvador-1983-glorija-mindok.html

Berislav Blagojevic's Blog:
http://berislavblagojevic.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/el-salvador-1983/

To read reviews go to:
Boston Globe review by Ellen Steinbaum

Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene Reviews:
http://dougholder.blogspot.com/search?q=lo+gallucio
http://dougholder.blogspot.com/search?q=irene+koronas