PRESS 254 invites you to the Publications Unit on Tuesday, May 2, at 7 p.m. CST to attend the launch and reading event for chapbooks written by Ọlákìtán Aládéṣuyì and Edcel Javier Cintrón-Gonzalez. Both chapbooks are part of the Spoonfuls Chapbook series, a collaborative imprint between the literary journal SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review) and PRESS 254.
This chapbook launch will celebrate Aládéṣuyì’s I wanted to teach you my name and Cintrón-Gonzalez’s Irma, Maria, Fiona, and Me and will feature both reading selections of their work.
The hybrid launch, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the Publications Unit in Williams Hall Annex (303 S. School St.), as well as virtually on Zoom (registration required for Zoom attendance). For international audiences, the local time zone is UTC -6.
Both chapbooks are available for purchase for $10 in the PRESS 254 bookstore, where you can choose to have the books delivered to your ISU campus mailbox, mailed to your residence, or available for a no-contact pickup at the Publications Unit in the Williams Hall Annex. Use the promo code SPOONFULS23 at checkout to receive 25% off your entire order (promo offer valid through May 15). All proceeds are used to fund current and future Spoonfuls and PRESS 254 projects.
“There is surprise to be encountered in [Aládéṣuyì’s] work, poem after poem enacting a sort of imagistic takeover and reordering of the reader’s mental topography. “
Pamilerin Jacob, Curator, Poetry Column—NND, Nigerian NewsDirect
About the Chapbooks
I wanted to teach you my name by Ọlákìtán T. Aládéṣuyì
Ọlákìtán T. Aládéṣuyì does not mince words in her debut poetry collection, I wanted to teach you my name. In poems at once interrogative of society and the self, Aládéṣuyì observes the archaic traditions supporting patriarchal systems, the absurdity of political systems that feign change, the everyday injustices meted out on women and girls in the name of love, and the deepening apathy that continually replaces our should-be rage. But still, there is an air of hope, a reverence for the strength it takes to become ourselves even in—and against—this landscape, and the promise that you, too, deserve to be home and enough.
“In all themes touched in this body of work, Ọlákìtán is notable for her dedication to simple, yet refreshing images. There is a surprise to be encountered in her work, poem after poem enacting a sort of imagistic takeover and reordering of the reader’s mental topography. Turns of phrases that unsettle the heart, what Dickinson meant when she wrote, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” So, too, these poems. “One door closes and another opens \ like sores on a beggar’s feet,” Ọlákìtán writes in one poem, an example of the depth that abounds in this collection.” —Pamilerin Jacob, Curator, Poetry Column—NND, Nigerian NewsDirect.
Aládéṣuyì grew up in Nigeria and now resides in the UK. She has written short stories and poems that have been published in various literary journals and magazines. Her story “girl of my dreams” was published in Prairie Schooner in 2019 and won the 2020 Lawrence Foundation Award. She is currently working on her debut novel.
[Cintrón-Gonzalez’s] collection resists the sanctity of the “resiliency narrative,” which overlooks the layered devastation, the collective and generational trauma, and the compounding catastrophe of hurricanes.
PRESS 254 Editorial Team
Irma, Maria, Fiona, and Me by Edcel Javier Cintrón-Gonzalez
Irma, Maria, Fiona, and Me by Cintrón-Gonzalez is a collection of poetry that invites the reader into the author’s childhood and adulthood experiences with hurricanes in the Caribbean. Cintrón-Gonzalez takes the reader on a journey into experiencing hurricanes throughout his life as he talks about the importance of family, survival, solidarity, community, and the collective trauma shared by Puerto Ricans from the island and the diaspora. The poet wants readers to feel empathy, sadness, and an understanding of how bad hurricane season is in Puerto Rico by sharing stories of collective struggles and resiliency before, during, and after the emotional, physical, and ecological damage caused by the hurricanes. Each hurricane mentioned in the chapbook has an important significance for Cintrón-Gonzalez. This collection resists the sanctity of the “resiliency narrative,” which overlooks the layered devastation, the collective and generational trauma, and the compounding catastrophe of hurricanes. Instead, the reader is brought face-to-face with the practicalities of living at the whim of a hurricane and questioning—and continually revising—the meaning of survival when it’s used over, over, and again.
Cintrón-Gonzalez is a proud Puerto Rican, scholar, and graduate worker who is pursuing a Ph.D. in English studies with a focus on children and young adult literature. His research interests focus on interdisciplinary ways to study children’s and young adult literature. Currently, he is interested in exploring topics on mental health; women, sexuality, and gender studies; game studies; and material rhetoric. When he is not working on academic things, he enjoys cooking, playing video games and writing about them on the website Gamers with Glasses and writing his monthly Children’s Picture Book review in Spanish for the Palabreadores Newsletter. Cintrón-Gonzalez’s creative work has been published in Palabreadores Newsletter, Euphemism, Sabanas: Literary Magazine, Ediciones Enserio, El Vicio del Tintero, and Abolition Dreaming: A Zine Project. Cintrón-Gonzalez has a forthcoming co-authored chapter titled “Witnessing Puerto Rican Foodways: Examining Four Examples of Cultural Embodiment” for Comidas, Cocinas y Cultura.
About PRESS 254
Founded in 2012 by Dr. Steve Halle, director of the Publications Unit, PRESS 254 has the two-part goal of educating publishing studies students about professional publishing while also engaging new and emerging writers in the Illinois State University and Bloomington-Normal community by producing approximately four short-run, handmade, limited edition chapbooks per year. PRESS 254 is made up of a student staff of publishing studies or English studies students enrolled in English 254: Introduction to Professional Publishing, under the editorial direction of Holms Troelstrup in the spring semesters and Steve Halle in the fall semesters. The students gain professional publishing experience by working through the entire production process to publish these chapbooks—from copy editing, designing, and typesetting, all the way to hand-stitching the binding, preparing marketing materials, and setting up the launch reading.
Here are this semester’s Spoonfuls and Press 254 editorial and production assistants:
Aládéṣuyì’s Production Team
- Nevaeh Borders
- Gabby Houde
- Crystal Lee
- Charlie Sharp
Cintrón-Gonzalez’s Production Team
- Kayleen Haile
- K Miner
- Kyu Kyu Thein
About Spoonfuls
Spoonfuls is an imprint and chapbook series featuring two limited edition print chapbooks of new poetry each year. The imprint is a collaboration between the literary journal SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review) and PRESS 254, a teaching chapbook press and workshop housed at the Publications Unit in the Department of English at Illinois State University. Spoonfuls seeks works in English and in translation that are a natural extension of the types of poetry published in SRPR, but it is especially interested in strange or underappreciated poetries that take risks in form, content, and/or politics; investigate local places in relation to global communities; and promote intercultural and intersectional awareness and exchange.
Find additional Spoonfuls and PRESS 254 chapbooks in the Publications Unit’s online bookstore. The promo code SPOONFULS23 will apply a 25% discount to your entire order. The event is sponsored by the English Department’s Publications Unit and PRESS 254. For more information about the event or for accommodations, please contact Holms Troelstrup, assistant director of the Publications Unit, at jhtroel@ilstu.edu or 309- 438-3025.
