Hanging Loose Press

09/02/2026

It's Brooklyn Book Festival season again!

We hope you'll join us for our BKBF Bookends reading focusing on poets in the diaspora taking control of their identity and immigrant stories. Featuring:

Miguel Coronado
Maja Lukic
Jiwon Choi
Tiffany Troy

RESILIENT: First/Second Generation Immigrant Poets Define and Negotiate Identity

We are willing to give up so much to assimilate into mainstream culture, but is it worth all that we lose? Poets Miguel Coronado, Jiwon Choi, Maja Lukic, and Tiffany Troy understand the tension of wanting to thrive in the diaspora while keeping true to their cultural identity and legacy, fully grasping that if we allow others to write our story, we are diminished and erased. Each poet will bring their own narrative on what it means to push back against the coercion of acculturation and assimilation.

Wednesday, September 23rd @ 6:30PM.

Poetry Society of America – 119 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY 11201 – accessible entrance & restroom

08/21/2026

Our sixty year history in poetry and publishing is founded by our editors' commitment to honoring the writer's vision and voice, as well as their own.

Editor Jiwon Choi describes how her work as a writer informs her practice as an editor:

I haven’t been an editor for very long, maybe five years. But I’ve been writing poems since the sixth grade. I bring this up not to suggest that I have so much prowess as a writer, but to say my sympathies will always align with the writer, knowing how tough the terrain of “writing” can be. As an editor, I consider the importance of how I will approach another poet’s work. I don’t want to assume that I know more than the poet so I am interested in gleaning the inspiration and impetus that went into creating the work. Always with respect and restraint.

Hanging Loose Press will be 60 in September and we couldn’t have come this far without you.

Support independent presses and editors, y’all.

08/14/2026

What an inspired evening we had at Book Culture LIC with featured poets and writers: Nicole Haroutunian, Shushanik Karapetyan, Olivia Katrandjian, Lola Koundakjian, Yetvart S. Majian, Jackie Marashlian, Alan Semerdjian, Ani Tatinstyan, Garen Torikian, Saro Varjabedian, Olivia Katrandjian, and Aida Zilelian.

Much thanks to the NYC chapter of IALA and Alan Semerdjian, our guest editor on issue 119, for including HLP in this gathering of illuminating Armenian poets and writers!

Find out more about IALA and all their good works at:

https://armenianliterary.org/

HLP will be 60 in September and we wouldn't have made it this far without our poets community.

08/09/2026

https://vimeo.com/683527252?fl=pl&fe=sh

Hello Poets Community,

Please join us at Book Culture Long Island City this upcoming Thursday to celebrate HL issue 119 and Armenian poets and writers.

We're partnering with the NYC chapter of the International Armenian Literary Alliance and Alan Semerdjian, guest editor of issue 119, for an inspired evening of writing that looks into the heart of Armenian literature, which has in Alan's words, "for the past hundred years or so, often been forced to focus on legitimacy and proving that the [Armenian Genocide] actually happened and maintaining historical accuracy against revisionist narratives."

We say: Obscurification be damned!

Readers will include Nicole Haroutunian, Shushanik Karapetyan, Olivia Katrandjian, Lola Koundakjian, Yetvart S. Majian, Jackie Marashlian, Alan Semerdjian, Ani Tatinstyan, Garen Torikian, Saro Varjabedian, and Aida Zilelian.

And check out this cool clip of Kevin Plummer, GM, showing you around the book store!

August 13th @ 7PM
Book Culture LIC
26-09 Jackson Ave
Long Island City, NY 11101

www.bookculture.com

08/05/2026

Michael Gottlieb, Evelyn Reilly, Mark Pawlak and Steven Ratiner
July 15, 2026

07/30/2026

Thanks to Don Yorty for recording our 7/25 reading for issue 119 at GreenSpace@President Street garden!

https://vimeo.com/1213327156

He's also uploaded a post about the reading on his blog:

donyorty.com

While you're there, make sure to read up on all good work this true citizen of poetry is up to.

Support independent poets and presses, y'all!

This is "Hanging Loose 119" by Don Yorty on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

07/28/2026

Issue 119's guest editor is the deeply talented Alan Semerdjian whose curated section honors Armenian poets, as this past April marked the 111th international commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. As Alan notes in his editor's note: "Armenian literature has, for the past hundred years or so, often
been forced to focus on legitimacy and proving that the event actually happened and maintaining historical accuracy against revisionist narratives."

In collaboration with the International Armenian Literary Alliance's NYC chapter please join us for a reading celebrating Armenian poets and writers, and independent presses who proudly publish their voices.

Date & Time:
Thursday, August 13th @ 7PM

Location:
Book Culture
26-09 Jackson Ave.
Long Island City, NY

07/27/2026

Thanks to Barbara Henning, Andrew Levy, D.Nurkse, Joanna Solfrian, and Gerald Wagoner for helping us launch issue 119 of Hanging Loose magazine. Your working through the human conditon in your poems brings us closer to a better understanding of how to live in our turbulent times.

Hanging Loose Press will be 60 in September and we couldn't have done it without our poets community.

07/21/2026

Our sixty year history in poetry and publishing is founded by our editors' commitment to honoring the writer's vision and voice, as well as their own.

Editor Mark Pawlak describes how his work as a writer impacts/inspires/informs his practice as an editor:

I have been writing and publishing poems for over 50 years and have been a literary editor for almost as long, first, briefly, with West End Press, then for the past 45 years with Hanging
Loose. I like to think that my own poetry has matured over time, gained breath and ambition, and that my craft has steadily improved through practice, through experiment, through emulating masterly examples that have inspired me, and yes, through reading and evaluating a large volume
of submissions by other poets.

Critiques of my poems by my early mentor Denise Levertov taught me to trust the poem, trust
the reader to get it if the poem is well made. It doesn’t need a summation tacked on as a conclusion. When I encounter that kind of summing-up in a poem I’m evaluating as editor, I’ll
suggest lopping off the concluding lines or stanza.

Another lesson I learned early came from reading Ezra Pound’s critical prose, about avoiding the overuse of adjectives. C.S. Lewis made a similar point, and I’ve drawn lessons not just from
writers but from other kinds of artists, too — applying them in my own work and bringing them to the poems of others I’m evaluating.

There is a reciprocal relationship between editor and poet that I didn't anticipate when I started out editing. Not just that I would bring my own poetry to my editorial practice, but that the submissions I read could and have given something back to my own poetry.

07/17/2026

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NiD9WZSmmYljTYl9G7X3m?si=1836f6ea68a94c55

Director of Operations, Matthew Beckerman, has been crafting playlists for Hanging Loose magazine since issue 117, here is what he has to say about his process:

"I select songs for each Hanging Loose magazine playlist after reading all of the work. For some I pick up on a word or an image that suggests a song I'm already familiar with; other times I search in Spotify for the word and see what pops up (e.g., "Vesuvius" by Surfjan Stevens). I often try to pick a lesser known version of the song because it's a way for the listener to really take it in or it's just plain cooler (e.g using Billy Preston's version of "You Are So Beautiful" as opposed to Joe Cocker's more famous version, or Justin Townes Earle's version of "Wanderin'") That said, sometimes the original is just the best, like the Bill Monroe, Jimmie Rodgers and Thelonius Monk picks. For the Donna Brook memoriam, I thought Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" reflects the loving tributes to her "not suffering fools gladly" vibe. And since Sonny Rollins just passed, his version of "You Don't Know What Love Is" seemed especially elegiac."

Order issue 119 at hangingloosepress.com.

Playlist · MattyDeano · 25 items · 1 saves