Buttonhook Press
The O:JA&L Masters Series
Poetry: All forms & Styles
Prose Poetry
Maxine Chernoff
DIARY
Excerpts form a Work-in-Progress
Including the essay “Love Affair with Prose Poetry”
With an interview of the Master by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
Click on the title to explore or download the free PDF.
Copyright © 2024 by BUTTONHOOK PRESS
An imprint of OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L)
All rights reserved on behalf of OJAL Art Incorporated, O:JA&L/BHP and Maxine Chernoff.
No part of this chapbook may be reproduced by any means except as provided for in fair use statutes of American copyright law
without the expressed written consent of the author and publisher.
Publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints
Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art
OJAL Art Incorporated is headquartered in California.
Formatted in Create Space.
Set in Garamond and GARAMOND ALLCAPS.
Made available online and/or printed in the USA and elsewhere as a novelty and commemorative document
celebrating the publication of Maxine Chernoff’s chapbook.
About the writer:
MAXINE CHERNOFF is the author of nineteen books of poems and six works of fiction. Her most recent book is Light and Clay: New and Selected Poems (2023), and her book of stories, Signs of Devotion, was a 1993 NYT Notable Book of the Year. A special issue of the Denver Quarterly (57:4) was recently devoted to her work, and a book about her work is forthcoming from MadHat Press in 2025. She is the recipient of a 2013 NEA in poetry and the 2009 PEN Translation Award for the work of Hölderlin, co-translated with Paul Hoover. In 2024 she was the keynote poet at the Louisville Conference, and in 2016 she was a visiting Writer at the American Academy in Rome. She also was a lecturer in poetry at Exeter University in England in 2013. She has read from her work in Brazil, Scotland, England, China, The Czech Republic, and Russia. Professor of Creative Writing at SFSU, she edited OINK! and NAW until 2013; the magazine continues under editor Paul Hoover and is published by MadHat Press.
About the interviewer:
PAMELYN CASTO, twice a Pushcart Prize nominee, has published feature-length articles on flash fiction in Writer’s Digest (and in their other publications), Fiction Southeast, and Writing World (and elsewhere). Her essay on flash fiction and myth appears in Rose Metal Press’s Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field and her 8,000-word essay on flash fiction is included in Books and Beyond: The Greenwood Encyclopedia Of New American Reading (4 volumes). She also has a 5,000-word article on flash fiction as the lead article in the new book Critical Insights: Flash Fiction. Subscribe to her free online monthly flashfictionflash newsletter (first issue published in 2001) for markets, contests, and publishing news for flash literature writers. Casto is an Associate Editor at O:JA&L. Pamelyn Casto’s new book Flash Fiction: Alive in The Flicker (A Portable Workshop), a new release from O:JA&L’s Buttonhook Press, is available now on Amazon.
Image: Diana by Umberto Romano (1906-1982). Oil on canvas. No size specified. 1930. Public domain.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
HAL: Heuristic Algorithmic Library
Issues of Contemporary Aesthetic: A Series
Click on the titles below to explore or download the free PDF documents.
The Outrun by Julie Alden Cullinane: A REVIEW
Miro’s Wars by John Brantingham: A REVIEW
Stories Begging Color by Larry D. Thomas: A REVIEW
OPTIMAL OR NOT and other poems by Heikki Huotari: A REVIEW
Experimental Discourse: A Productive Labor
A consideration of the work of Jim Meirose
Larry D. Thomas and the Evolution of the American Chapbook
A consideration of the writing of Larry D. Thomas
Mick McGrath and the Samizdat Tradition
A consideration of the published prose of Mick McGrath
Richard Widerkehr: A Poet of Place, Memory, and Quiet Epiphany
A consideration of the poetry of Richard Widerkehr
The O:JA&L Masters Series
An introduction to the O:JA&L Masters series
BUTTONHOOK PRESS MASTERS SERIES
Click on the titles to explore or download the free PDF chapbooks.
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Mark Budman on Flash Discourse
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Ray Gonzalez on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Michael Martone on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Roberta Allen on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Peter Conners on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Pedro Ponce on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Kent Dixon on Flash Fiction & Nonfiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Jim Meirose on Experimental Discourse
With an interview by Associate Editor Warwick Newnham
O:JA&L’S HIGH BUTTON PRESS ART CHAPBOOKS
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RITES OF CALIBRATION: Images & Excerpts
Fine Art Photography by Rex Wilder
Fine Art Photography by Natalie Christensen
Painting and drawing by Anne-Marie Brown
BY LAND AND BY SEA: Awakening the Sensual
Sculpture and Installation by Mark Yale Harris
Painting and drawing by Bette Ridgeway
Painting and drawing by Kathleen Frank
Painting and drawing by Catherine Eaton Skinner
Implications of Energy
Artist portfolio of Dr. Ernest Williams III
