TRAVEL BY HAIKU, VOLUMES 6-10: FAR OUT ON THE ROAD WITH FRIENDS
compiled by Marshall Deerfield
​release date: March 31, 2021
RSVP to the Virtual Release Party: https://bit.ly/TBHReleaseParty

Travel By Haiku: Volumes 6-10, Far Out On The Road With Friends is a modern ode to the community found on the road, written by six navigators of its far reaches over the course of three separate road trips. The first, a roadrunner's ramble through the Big Bend region of West Texas with Augustus Depenbrock. Followed by a month-long jaunt up the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle, stopping at every natural wonder along the way, with Shane Donnelly and Tara Lynn Faith Williamson. Last, but not least, a dive deep into the Rockies with Stephanie Beattie and Cameron Christopher Stuart, on the way from Taos, New Mexico to the crown jewel, Glacier National Park in Montana. Those familiar with the American Pops of Jack Kerouac, the blues-infused ku of Sonia Sanchez, or the travel fiction of Basho will see the parallels between the spirit of the road, as it was and as it is now. An ever-changing, undying wanderlust that brings people together across distances unknown, until they are adventured, together. 

In this collection, our hero Marshall Deerfield ties it all together as a young poet growing wilder. An experienced driver, following the bends in the road, from mystical beginnings between myth and nature to a complete immersion in the woods that all this time he has been seeking. This book like a vehicle points the direction and revs its engine, fueled by each haiku as it carries the reader towards the sublime only ever found in the stillness of Earth's deepest corridors. It is an affirmation. We all have this opportunity to find our woods and find the words to uplift what remains of the natural wildness that exists all around us, as well as the endless wilderness waiting to be cultivated within.

POLICE IN THE WILDERNESS
a play by Cameron Christopher Stuart

​We're very excited to announce the newest release from A Freedom Books: Cameron Christopher Stuart’s collection of plays titled Police in the Wilderness. The book features two versions of the same play written and revisited along with various dramatic stagings by Saints of an Unnamed Country over a ten year period, creating an experience to fully absorb the psychedelic audacity of this wild expose on the human wilderness. With themes of climate change, life in a dystopian police state, and mind-altering philosophical dialectics on the birth and death of poetic meaning, this collection could’ve chosen no better time to make its grand entrance into our collective consciousness.
Copies will be included with tickets to the live staging of Police In The Wilderness at Patch Works in Brooklyn, NY during its 5 show run from January 22-25, 2020 as part of The Exponential Festival. Grab tickets today!
Read an interview about the play here: http://bit.ly/2sn31mn

THE EDGE OF WAKING
poems by Julia Daye

We are very excited to welcome our newest author, Julia Daye, with her first chapbook titled The Edge of Waking. This collection is years in the making. These poetic works follow fundamental truths, venturing into the ever-ripening heart's innate echo of the natural world. Copies of this newly published collection can be obtained directly from the author. Give her a shout and welcome her to A Freedom Books!

NEW RELEASE: 2 Clown Plays
by Cameron Christopher Stuart and Seraphic Romance Rots Truth

A Freedom Books is excited to welcome in this new author to our team! Cameron Christopher Stuart is an accomplished playwright and this new collection documents the tried and true clown plays of his eventual legacy. From the author:

2 CLOWN PLAYS collects two (2) scripts performed by Saints of an Unnamed Country, a NYC-based theater company, in the year of the clown, 2015. Written by the scholarly duo of Cameron Christopher Stuart and Seraphic Romance Rots Truth, these plays catalog dream poetry transcribed by a floating mirror hand for transmission to a smiling, make-up smeared clown visage replete with mouth-machine -- in this case talented performer Lily Chambers (pictures of her clown prowess included in this volume). Satirical, delicious, suffused with rocket fuel and cinnamon toothpaste, these paroxysms of ghostmothership amorphous chocochippy candykaynes are blow-pops for the undernourished mindhole. Performable! By clowns and cats alike. Instructions included. DO NOT MISS THE BONUS LEVEL.Grab your copy here: http://bit.ly/2ClownPlays

Seeds of Illumination is a poetic compilation of true tales inspired by a host of wild initiations, raw revelations, and cathartic celebrations experienced while traveling the rocky road of realization. This book is a testament to SPIRIT, to the realms that exist within and beyond the five senses, to those places shrouded in mystery with more presence and power in our lives than we realize. Through reading this collection, the words work to inspire us to dive deeper, so that we may dream ourselves awake.We're so excited to have Sage Kohen on board for this new release. Stay in touch and see how things grow.

NEW RELEASE: Letters To Aunt Lucy, Chapter 1
by Stephanie B.

A Freedom Books is excited to announce it's newest release from emerging writer Stephanie B. From the author: Letter's to Aunt Lucy is "a letter and poetry exchange between a letter-writer and the Australopithecus Lucy. It's an exploration of deep ancestral memory, our biology, and the many forms of love we share with ourselves, each other, all the creatures, and this great big planet."
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Themes explored include womanhood, relationships, agriculture, and environment. The text is meant to be read out loud at top volume in order to fully awaken the primal rhythms that beat away inside us all.
Copies will be available in person from the writer. Be sure to catch her on the road this March when she goes on tour with Marshall James Kavanaugh across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. You can find dates for that here: https://www.facebook.com/events/590999804391152/

More information is available from the author here: http://letterstoauntlucy.tumblr.com

It is with much excitement and anticipation that we share A-Politico Absurdia. It’s been five years in the making, so it is our hope the words have been infused with enough time and energy to do their job and transport a curious reader into this wonderous world of punk rêve. Three cheers to the dream and the rêvelution contained within.

This is the first publication of A-Politico Absurdia in its entirety. It was no easy feat for this work to become the pretty, bound collection it is now. For the first year it existed mostly in various forms of word exchange between the authors, until Maguire finally took a night and scribbled it all down on several scraps of paper. There it remained collecting dust in a desk drawer in his house in New Jersey while both writers traveled and released several other Dream Dialectics together, as well as, collections of their own work, individually. Then in late 2014, the scraps of paper were taken from the desk drawer and driven around the country in the glove compartment of James Kavanaugh’s car. Upon their return to the east coast these scraps of language were finally made digital. This led to a few more months of back and forth emailing, editing, and rewriting between the two writers until finally in late 2015 the text was finished, packaged, and given its first breath in the new world. It is now early 2016 and it has finally been released in a form far beyond what was originally realized.

Copies can be found with either of the authors or you can download a copy here!

Over the last year, one of the main criticisms our publication, The New Aesthetic has received is that even though the story it tells is grand and the philosophies it encounters are engaging, it's hard for many of our readers to feel completely included in this supposedly "new" way of being, when the pronouns it chooses are still mostly male-dominated. I mean, if this truly is The New Aesthetic, wouldn't the gender it expresses become increasingly self-identified and not stick to the limits of the English language? The answer is yes, of course! 

The limited language in previous editions of The New Aesthetic was more a consequence of Zef and I as writers trying to tell our story about our travels. And even though it loosely discussed the ideas of gender-bending and breaking down the status quo, it failed to make those aesthetics a part of the reader's experience. And, though the text mimicked a manifesto espousing the world of travel through an open lens, that openness got a little restricted when all the references to the Zen Lunatic or the Traveling Writer referred to this archetype as he. 

I am very grateful for all the feedback we received and I found it really encouraging that so many of our audience connected with the ideas of the writing, so much so that they wanted to help us to better express them. It really helped us push the language of the text through to the next layer and hopefully open it up too all of our readers and fellow travelers and many dreamers who share our love of this all-encompassing rêvelution that is slowly working its influence over our daily culture. 

It's with much excitement that we announce the 4th printing of Dream Dialectic: The New Aesthetic. In the interest of our "spread it" mantra, I have also uploaded a digital copy to our website (which you can click above) for your viewing and reading pleasure. You'll notice that previously masculine pronouns referring to the Zen Lunatic or any of the other archetypes have been changed to non-binary pronouns that express a sensitivity to how the reader chooses to self-identify with the character. I chose ve for the Zen Lunatic and the Traveling Writer because of its associations with sci-fi writing, and its tendency to be a polite gender-neutral pronoun in formal conversation. On the other hand, I used ze for the chapters on the Mystic and the Jester, because this writing is based more on personal experiences that Zef and I had, and ze has more of a casual usage. But the Mystic and the Jester are still archetypes that I think anyone could assume. In this new world, we are all Zen Lunatics and Mystics and Jesters and an infinite amount of other magical creatures and so I hope now the text properly includes us all in this beautiful world together. 


Finally, we look forward to the discussion that this new edition creates since the use of non-binary pronouns is still a hot topic and new territory for everyone. The pronouns are still being created and adapted by writers all over the country to better suit the public. This is an exciting time for language! Of course, any text that uses them is going to stir up better ideas and hopefully more ways to break out and find a better way to express these dreamy truths of being a wanderer in a constantly growing world. I can't wait!

Marshall James Kavanaugh