DISAPPOINTED PSALMS WILL NOT ... DISAPPOINT!

A Meritage Press Announcement

A Pre-Release Offer for:

DISAPPOINTED PSALMS
Poems by Brian Clements
ISBN-13: 978-0-9794119-4-6 
ISBN-10: 0-9794119-4-7  
Price: $16.00
Release Date: Fall 2008
Distributors: Small Press Distribution, Amazon.com & www.MeritagePress.com

Meritage Press is delighted to announce the release of Disappointed Psalms by Brian Clements.  This poetry collection is published as the recipient of the Colombian Poetry Gift sponsored by Meritage Press. 

After years of working exclusively in the prose poem, Brian Clements shifts in Disappointed Psalms to short bursts, in turns raw and lyrical, that turn the languages of war and religion, so frequently aligned, against themselves.  Combining short phrases from The Book of Psalms and catch phrases from the post-9/11 cultural reservoir with Clement's own lamentations on lost faith, these short poems and the litany that closes the book, like all the best political poems, attempt to wrest the ability to make meaning from the hands of spin doctors, liars, dissemblers and would-be builders of empire.

The following is an excerpt from Disappointed Psalms:

One who realizes he is not a believer
May clothe himself with curses as his cloak,

And he may set up the sign of ignorance
As his own sign.

But one who realizes he is a believer
May know you, Lord,

And he may set himself up as your creditor
And seize all that he can,

And he may set up shop
In your name.

Brian Clements is the author of several collections of poetry, including And How To End It and Essays Against Ruin. He edits the small press Firewheel Editions and its Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics and coordinates the MFA in Professional Writing at Western Connecticut State University.

PRE-RELEASE SPECIAL OFFER
To celebrate the release of Disappointed Psalms, Meritage Press is pleased to offer a special disounted pre-release arrangement good through Aug. 15, 2008 (newly-extended from original June 30, 2008 deadline due to popular demand).  You may order the book for $12.00 (a 25% discount from the book's $16 retail price) plus free shipping/handling for orders throughout the United States.  (For non-U.S. orders, please email us first at MeritagePress@aol.com.)  Send a check made out to "Meritage Press" to

Eileen Tabios
Publisher, Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

For more info: MeritagePress@aol.com