Subtexts

Red Mountain Press celebrates its 10-year anniversary

A decade of highs: Red Mountain Press

Santa Fe’s Red Mountain Press celebrates its 10-year anniversary in June with two literary events. The first, at 5 p.m. Sunday, June 4, is a poetry reading by Jeffrey Bean and Marc Hudson. Bean’s book, Woman Putting on Pearls, the winner of the 2016 Red Mountain Poetry Prize, is a voyeur’s view of a woman’s daily existence, the details of her movements in her environment, and the sad inner life of her would-be stalker, who perceives himself as a romantic. “Is the green shade in you/you press up to./Lay down your book,/this body, thick loaf, your slow work,” Bean writes in a poem titled “Sleep.” Many of the poems in Hudson’s new collection, East of Sorrow, focus on his children, the natural world, and gratitude for what the earth offers. The reading is at Teatro Paraguas Studio (3205 Calle Marie, 505-424-1601); donations accepted.

Journey Santa Fe hosts Red Mountain’s official anniversary celebration at Collected Works Bookstore (202 Galisteo St., 505-988-4226) at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 11, with readings from and a discussion of Ten Years on the Mountain, an anthology of poetry and prose from 25 Red Mountain authors. The volume, edited by Susan Gardner and Devon Ross, includes the writers’ commentary on the process of working with the press. Many of the writers characterize Gardner’s editing and critique style as direct and effective. She often suggests that a writer read stories aloud, or go outside to walk or dance with the poems. “It was summer, mornings were golden, and dubious as I was, I decided to take her words to heart,” writes Gordon Ball, whose prose piece “On Tokyo’s Edge: Gaijin Tales From Post-War Japan 2017” is included in the collection. “Just after breakfast I walked up and down the quiet, familiar road fronting our house, sheaves of paper clutched in hand, speaking their words as gentle sunlight blessed the pages.”