Introduction

Join us for an inspiring session with Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson, editors and founders of Action Books—as well as poets, translators, and critics who have given us books like Toxicon & Arachne and The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults (McSweeney), Summer and Transgressive Circulation (Göransson). We talk about the storm-born origins of Action Books, its thinking of the avant-garde, poetry that “goes all the way,” the transgressiveness and provocations of small-press lit, definitely not publishing “the finest,” modernist dynamos, the volatile space of translation and how it serves as a model for collaboration. We all think together about being publishers based in the Rust Belt/in red states, and we celebrate some vital weirdness and iconic weirdos.

Writers whose names came up include Aase Berg, Kim Hyesoon, Don Mee Choi, Raúl Zurita, Blaise Cendrars, and Lara Glenum, among others—find their work at Action & beyond.