I discovered Black Ocean at AWP Chicago in 2009 and I adore their books. Well, BL #18 contributor Feng Sun Chen recently published Butcher’s Tree with Black Ocean, and it might be my favorite yet. When I received my copy, publisher Janaka Stucky had tucked in a copy of his Ahsahta Press contest-winning chapbook, The World Will Deny It For You.
Books in the mail. The joy that will never wane.
Maybe it’s because the two came in the same envelope, or because I read them back to back, but I became very interested in not really comparing them, but just observing them together.