local lit
Celebrate the release of Nick Courtright’s Punchline by catching one of theauthor's upcoming appearances
Regular readers of CultureMap’s Literature section will recall that, last fall, we excerpted local writer Nick Courtright’s Punchline, a collection of poems inspired by classic quotes and written in mind-expandingly illustrative prose.
(You can catch up on the series, starting with an interview with the author; here are parts one, two, three and four of our excerpts.)
Fans of Courtright’s work (and we know there are a lot of you), rejoice, because the full volume is now available from Gold Wake Press, an independent publisher that features exclusive online and print pieces from some of the nation’s most exciting up-and-coming writers.
Acclaimed poet Nicky Beer has said Punchline's poems "mine the frustrating unknowableness of the world, and celebrate its exhilarating mystery with elegance, compassion, and imagination.” And the audience agrees: "These are poems that seek everything, question everything, yet take nothing for granted. Sometimes mystical, other times existential, these poems address themes that would be at home in the work of Blake, Whitman, and Bly," says reader Gerry M. Hopkins.
Go beyond the page and experience Punchline in person; on Saturday, March 24, Courtright appears at Lord Weary’s Reading Series (held by students of UT’s Michener Center).
You can also see him on March 31 at UNT in Dallas, April 17 at Concordia in Austin and in June at BookPeople with author Julie Choffel. If you can’t make it out to an event, hear the poet on KOOP’s Writing on the Air on April 18, and be on the lookout for his forthcoming interview in Texas State’s literary journal, Front Porch.
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Get your copy of Punchline on Courtright’s site, or through Powells (or Amazon or BN.com)