A Cluster of Noisy Planets

Charles Rafferty¿s latest collection of prose poems turns philosophical. In A Cluster of Noisy Planets, Rafferty captures the rhythms and patterns of life as a lover, father, and poet, distilling each moment to its essence and grounding them collectively in the wider perspective of a changing world, the constant turning of the stars and the changing seasons of the New England countryside. With a knowing nod to the passage of time¿day to day, year to year, epoch to epoch¿these lyrical poems form a record of the profound, ephemeral joys, losses, and echoes of commonplace moments.

About the author

Charles Rafferty is the author of 14 poetry books and chapbooks, most recently The Smoke of Horses (BOA Editions, 2017), Something an Atheist Might Bring Up at a Cocktail Party (Mayapple Press, 2018), and The Problem With Abundance (Grayson Books, 2019). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, O, Oprah Magazine, The Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, Rhino, Prairie Schooner, and Ploughshares. His stories have been collected in Saturday Night at Magellan¿s (Fomite Press, 2013) and Somebody Who Knows Somebody (Gold Wake Press, 2021). He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Currently, he co-directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College and teaches in the Westport Writers¿ Workshop. He lives in Sandy Hook, CT.

Foreword

150+ galleys will be printed in April 2021.

Galley mailing to key reviewers, media outlets, and booksellers 4-5 months prior to publication. Additional galleys will be available upon request.

Digital galleys available by request on Edelweiss+ 3-4 months prior to publication.

Advanced review copies and press materials will be sent to a targeted list of 120-150 reviewers in July 2021. Additional ARCs available by request: [e-mail].

National advertising: Poets & Writers, American Poets, and the Academy of American Poets newsletter.

Outreach to online media and bloggers including BuzzFeed, Bustle, Book Riot, Literary Hub, etc.

Buy-ins to relevant academic conferences, trade shows, and publications targeting poetry, history, and global studies. Currently considering: American Library Association Annual Meeting, CBSD Sales and Academic catalogs, etc.

Fall book announcements submitted to Publishers Weekly.

Online/social media campaign: Extensive promotion through BOA's website, blog, e-newsletter (4.6K+ subscribers), Facebook (7.4K+ followers), Twitter (11.3K+ followers), and Instagram (3.7K+ followers) accounts.

Full-page feature in in-house catalog.

E-postcards will be sent to BOA’s academic contacts, reviewer contacts, bookstore contacts, and literary bloggers.

Simultaneous ebook and print publication. Ebook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed.

Additional text

Praise for Charles Rafferty

“Inasmuch as Rafferty writes in a hybrid form—the prose poem—one is obliged to be mindful of those canonical precursors that he engages in the traditional Bloomian agon. Such a contest is akin to Jacob wrestling with the Lord’s angel in the book of Genesis, feeling those terrible sinews tremble like the strains of some unearthly music. One immediately calls to mind not only Poe, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud, but also Georg Trakl, Francis Ponge, and Jean Follain.”

— Floyd Collins, The Gettysburg Review

“The prose poems in Charles Rafferty’s A Cluster of Noisy Planets, precisely and with great authority, document a world that has fewer stars and more ruins. The poems are artifacts that make a case for us to take a journey down paths where ‘swans are duplicating their grace’ and remind us that the ‘chain we forge is father to the rust.’ That juxtaposition between the beauty which exists in nature and the impermanence of what human beings create, and won’t last, is the nexus where the poems vibrate and reveal, ultimately conveying an urgent call to the reader to see the world and to appreciate what’s left of its fragile beauty.”

—Christopher Kennedy, author of Clues from the Animal Kingdom

“[Rafferty] always imagines interesting scenarios we can read ourselves into, un-self-indulgently saying something keen about our world in language ‘sharp as broken vodka bottles.’”

―Library Journal

Product details

• Authors: Charles Rafferty
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 05.10.2021, delayed
• EAN: 9781950774470
• ISBN: 978-1-950774-47-0
• No. of pages: 80
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies