On Sunday, May 19, 2019, Rick Black will be giving an artist talk, “The Amichai Windows”: A Morning of Poetry and Art” at the Highland Park Conservative Synagogue in Highland Park, NJ. To date, The Amichai Windows is in several major collections, including Yale University Library, the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress […]
Poetry
Nick Virgilio: A Haiku Poet for our Time
By Emma Rawley If you’re like most people, then haiku is not something you’re familiar with beyond high school English class. The form itself isn’t very complicated: only three lines with 17 syllables and no set meter or rhyme scheme. Though they are not as complex as Shakespeare’s sonnets or Milton’s Paradise Lost, these short […]
Yale University Library Buys Amichai Windows
ARLINGTON, VA — We are very glad to announce that Yale University Library has purchased the first copy of our limited edition artist book, The Amichai Windows. “The work is quite stunning and we are delighted to add it to our Yale Library collection,” said Nanette Stahl, the Joseph and Ceil Mazer Librarian for Judaic […]
Chad Lee Robinson Wins HSA Award
ARLINGTON, VA—Turtle Light Press is proud to announce that Chad Lee Robinson’s The Deep End of the Sky has won a 2016 Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award. Robinson’s book, which won the Turtle Light Press 2014 Haiku Chapbook Contest, took second place among all haiku books published in 2015. “I am more than […]
SRO Crowd for Nick Virgilio Film
A standing-room-only crowd of about 40 people turned out for our recent screening of the Sean Dougherty film, remembering Nick Virgilio at the Big Blue Marble bookstore in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. The audience, many of whom are members of the local Mad Poets Society branch, started trickling in around 7 p.m. from […]
Nick Virgilio Prints Now Available
I’m excited to let folks know about some new fine art prints that TLP now has to offer. On numerous trips to Camden, N.J., to work on the new Turtle Light Press book, Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku, I snapped photos of the area and now have turned them into digital paintings, each one […]
Anna Akhmatova: Poetry and Solace
As Osip Mandelstam said, “great poetry is often a response to total disaster.” This morning, my daughter arose early at 5:30 a.m. because she incorrectly set her alarm clock. Instead of going back to bed, she tiptoed downstairs to read the fifth book of Harry Potter. I decided to get up myself, shave and read […]
Don’t Miss This Screening…Coming Events!
You won’t want to miss it! Please join us for a screening of the poignant documentary remembering Nick Virgilio… by Sean Dougherty at 2 p.m. on Sunday, October 7 at Robin’s Bookstore/Moonstone Arts Gallery in Philadelphia. We will have a special reading of sections of the new Virgilio book, Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku, […]
Riots at American Consulate in Libya
Watching the riots at the American consulate in Libya brings back memories of when I was caught in similar circumstances during my reporting experiences in Israel. That was already 20 years ago but the visceral memory of being amid a mob bent on killing has stayed with me. It was during the first Palestinian intifada […]
A City Slicker Poet-Artist-Musician
Just this week a terrific feature came out about Nick Virgilio in A Hundred Gourds by Kathleen O’Toole in which she discusses the forces that led Virgilio to haiku as well as his influence upon the haiku community and our perception of haiku today. Here are some short excerpts: “When Nick Virgilio discovered a copy […]
Magical, Moving Virgilio Book Launches!
About 150 people gathered together the last weekend of National Poetry Month for two book launches in Camden, N.J., to celebrate the life and poetry of Nick Virgilio. To date, many of the major media outlets in the Philadelphia region have done stories on Virgilio and our new book, Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku. […]
“Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku” is Available!
After a busy winter of editing and designing, negotiating rights to photos and interviews, Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku is now available. The book is a treasure trove of 100 uncollected and unpublished haiku plus a sampling of about 30 old favorites. Edited and introduced by Raffael de Gruttola, the book also contains a […]
Nick Virgilio Book Update and more . . .
As we approach the heart of winter, Raffael de Gruttola has finished editing the upcoming book of Nick Virgilio poems and Rick Black is beginning to design the cover and interior. Tentatively entitled Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku, the book is due out in the spring and will feature more than 100 unknown poems […]