Guante’s New Book: Preorder Info, Release Events, and The First Chapter Available Now!

on

I wrote a book. It shares the title of my sampler album, “A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry,” and features spoken word poems, song lyrics, and essays on art, activism, media, and more. Part mixtape, part disorientation guide, and part career retrospective, the book represents the work that I have been refining and performing over the past decade or so. It also includes a foreword by the incredible Saymoukda Vongsay. The official release date is October 4, 2016. A few notes:

1. Order the Book through Button Poetry
Here is a link to order the book online. Especially for people outside of the Twin Cities area, who may not be able to attend any release events, this is the best way to get it. The books are signed, and come with a copy of my sampler album of the same name, which contains my favorite songs that I’ve recorded.

2. Come to a Release Event
I wanted to do something different for the book’s physical release. Rather than throw one big me-centric event, I thought I’d support a handful of events that are already happening, and have a “release month” instead. Come to any one of these events to pick up a copy:

  • October 3: Button Poetry Live at Camp Bar in St. Paul; 7pm doors, 8pm event. 18+.
  • October 15: The Twin Cities Book Festival at the MN State Fairgrounds; I’ll be at a table there the whole time (10am – 5pm). Free, all ages.
  • October 20: TruArtSpeaks‘ ReVerb Open Mic at Golden Thyme Cafe in St. Paul; 6-8pm. Free, all ages.
  • October 28: I’ll be performing at the Overcoming Racism Conference at Metro State University.
  • November 4: “Page.Stage.Engage” at the UMN Whole Music Club; 7:30pm doors, 8pm show. Free, all ages. More details TBA.
3. Bring Me to Your City, College, or University
If you’d like to bring my book tour to your city, college, university, library, book store, or wherever, thank you. I’m available for performances, interactive workshops, keynotes and more. Here is my booking information. 
This wasn’t originally in the book, but I added it as a kind of intro chapter to frame everything else. As spoken word (at least the kind driven by poetry slams, viral videos, etc.) continues to get more and more popular, it struck me as strange that a piece like this didn’t already exist somewhere. Obviously, not everyone is going to agree with everything in this, but I think it’s a useful starting point for a broader conversation.

On a personal level, it feels good to have this project done; it’s been years in the making. It is more of a retrospective than a collection of new work (though there is some new stuff in it); but I think there is value in that, especially for those of us who are on the indie/DIY side of the arts world. Aside from the poems, lyrics, and essays, the book also contains a big bank of discussion questions and writing prompts, and my hope is that it can be useful for educators in multiple contexts. I also wanted to have the book to increase accessibility to my work, since I work in a primarily audio/visual medium. As always, thank you for reading and thank you for the support.