The Stanza
Bainbridge Island Press weekly newsletter - June 4, 2026
Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers 2026, Top in Poetry
We’re More Fun Than a Scholastic Book Faire
Remember the Scholastic Book Fair? The intoxicating, woody scent of freshly sharpened pencils, the towering mazes of folding cardboard shelves, and the agonizing, high-stakes decision between the glittery unicorn eraser and the holographic dinosaur folder? (All while clutching a damp five-dollar bill like it was the golden ticket.)
Bainbridge Island Press is exactly like that…minus the stressful math and plus a lot more poetry. We promise.
This week, we are throwing open the virtual doors to give you a front-row seat to the press. We’ve got a stellar new review, an upcoming live reading you won’t want to miss, a brand-new bookstore to show off, and a fresh chapbook still warm from the Pentecost fires. Grab your favorite mug, clear your desk, and settle in.
Tim Mayo, Reviewed and on the Road
South Broadway Press just published Eden Heffron-Hanson’s review of Tim Mayo’s third full-length collection, Muscle Memories of Love and Disaster, out from BIP in March. A taste:
Modern poetry seems obsessed with space, with stanzas blown to pieces, erased and abstracted, or left to secrete on the page. Entering Muscle Memories I was nearly overwhelmed by the welcoming received from the writing. It’s a collection, again, not interested in “po-biz”, that I feel is all business. The collection has no time to waste between the reader and the portraits of loved ones in the book, the proximity to death in the collection requires immediacy, making sense of days when “you just lived./Each day must have been the same.”
and
Any reader interested in survival after survival will find refuge here.
Read the full review at South Broadway Press.
Live Event
And if you’re anywhere near Vermont on Wednesday, June 24, Tim will be reading at The Norwich Bookstore in Norwich alongside Chard deNiord, whose VT Book Awards finalist collection Westminster West makes for a remarkable pairing. Seven o’clock. 291 Main Street. Worth the drive!
The POETICS Bookstore Is Open
You knew about the workshop, now meet the bookstore! The POETICS Bookstore has 5 shelves under one roof: titles we’ve discussed on the show, work by local Pacific Northwest authors, books by friends of the press, poetry craft books, and BIP’s own list.
Think of it as working shelves, with fresh and zesty new titles rotating in monthly.
Check it out!
https://bainbridgeisland.press/collections/poetics-bookstore-from-the-podcast
And in case you missed it, the POETICS Summer Workshop is still open for registration. Five live Zoom sessions, September through October, capped at twelve poets.
https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/poetics-summer-workshop-2026
As of Fire
Our stunning Pentecost-themed chapbook is available now!
https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/as-of-fire
https://bainbridgeislandpress.substack.com/p/poetics-podcast-muscle-memories-of