The poet and her poet-publisher: A double review of Feng Sun Chen's Butcher's Tree and Janaka Stucky's The World Will Deny It For You, by Stacia M. Fleegal

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.

Chaps good, fees bad, and the jury’s still out on debt: Stacia M. Fleegal interviews Janaka Stucky of Black Ocean, publishers of gorgeousness

SMF: Tell us about the history of Black Ocean.

JS: The short version is that I’d fantasized about being a publisher since I was around 14 years old, when I started making zines. Years later, after finishing grad school, it seemed like a “now or never” moment for me to try and realize that dream.