::Up-Set Press:: profile picture

::Up-Set Press::

Writing and Art that Up-Sets the Status Quo

About Me


Up-Set Press is an open and supportive space for writers and artists who offer a new vision and language that lie on the outside of traditionally published material. The press produces mainly first books by authors with some reprints of exceptional and educational out-of-print books.
Founded in 2000 by a group of NYC-based poets, UpSet Press publishes SPAWN'zine, holds bi-weekly poetry workshops for Brooklyn-based poets, and group readings around the city. During the summer of 2003, the press rented an artist’s space in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn and offered an Artist-in-Residency for visual artist, Chanika Svetlivas. Svetvilas completed her “Suitcase Series,” visual art on the topic of migration during her residency and exhibited this series at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Queens Museum and Brooklyn Public Library. In 2005, UpSet Press published Theater of War a collection of poetry and political satire by Nicholas Powers. In 2006, the press sponsored Brooklyn-based filmmaker and writer, Cihan Kaan as its Writer-in-Residence. Kaan began working on a collection of short stories entitled Halal Pork (forthcoming fall 2008). Currently, UpSet Press is concluding the production phase of a poetry collection, The Comeback’s Exoskeleton, by Matthew Rotando, to be released in April 2008.

My Interests

"Why all this passion? When we are thrust out into the world just as we are, we first have to identify with the particular throw of the dice, with that accident organized by the divine computer: to get over our surprise that precisely this (what we see facing us in the mirror) is our self."
Milan Kundera, Immortality

I'd like to meet:


Mawlana Jalaludin Rumi

Fernando Pessoa

Assia Djebar

Aime Cesaire

Intellectual Revolutionaries

Wordsmiths

Vagrant Visual Artists

We are in search of new talent and seeking to collaborate with other artists and writers groups on projects, events etc.

Movies:

The Warriors, Head On Fatih Akin, Battle of Algiers Gillo Pontecorvo, Paradise NowHany Abu Asad, Goonies, Divine Intervention Elias Suleiman, The Mystic Masseur Ismail Merchant, Lagaan, and apparently anything revolutionary, quirky or with subtitles...

Books:

Fernando Pessoa, Edward Said, Moustafa Bayoumi, Tara Bahrampour, Dalton Conley, Simone Schwartz-Bart, Judith Butler, Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Orhan Pamuk, Muriel Rukeyser, Ted Berrigen, Vikas Menon, Derek Walcott, Suheir Hammad, Paolo Javier, Kazim Ali, Meena Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali, Milan Kundera, Michele Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Ahdaf Soueif, Julia Kristeva, Walter Benjamin, Ron Padgett, Jamaica Kincaid, Jalaludin Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Rabia and the list goes on

Heroes:

Edward Said
And... myth streaming poets and artists sustaining themselves on ramen pride soup when necessary to keep true to their craft.

My Blog

Emmy Catedral

Featured Artist Summer '06: Emmy Catedral http://emmywerks.dekarabaw.com Emmy Catedral grew up in Butuan, Iloilo City, and Queens. She emigrated to New York City in 1992. Emmy has worked with and for ...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:10:00 PST

Interview with Featured Writer (Spring 06): Cihan Kaan

Cihan Kaan was born in a Transcendental Meditation Commune in Texas. A Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker, he began writing and making films at the age of thirteen and has since built a modest body o...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Tue, 18 Jul 2006 02:29:00 PST

Bruna Mori: New York Cityscape

Bruna Mori 3 Poems Q: Brighton Beach (Brooklyn) Igor pours Stoli over a knife to separate it from the tomato juice.  I toast zavas, and cannot down this quickly enough to allow the juice...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Wed, 31 May 2006 10:20:00 PST

Nicholas Powers: Preface to Theater of War

THEATER OF WAR Nicholas Powers     Preface   It was night when I started. It is 6:47am now. The stars are disappearing. I wrote poetry instead of dreaming, if you ever wonder what poetr...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Mon, 08 May 2006 10:22:00 PST

Denise Galang: Poems

The Subway Centaur The centaur sings Feliz Navidadgallantly trots through silver doors of the F train - his lanky equine body weathered by snow and dust. Rising from its torso, a manwearing a gold p...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Mon, 08 May 2006 10:20:00 PST

Chris Lew: Three Poems

Crossing Manhattan Bridge At five o'clock David and I drive over and leave Brooklynand our powerless apartment of thawing peas and steak He sings along to the radio and I think of who else is tuned i...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Sun, 07 May 2006 03:14:00 PST

Denise Galang: The Subway Centaur

The Subway Centaur Denise Galang The centaur sings Feliz Navidad       gallantly trots through       silver doors of the F train his la...
Posted by ::Up-Set Press:: on Sun, 07 May 2006 03:08:00 PST