Pink Thunder

Black Ocean
Michael Zapruder, introduction by Scott Pinkmountain
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With contributions from twenty-three poets, three engineers, and over thirty musicians, Pink Thunder presents a musical and lyrical experiment by award-winning songwriter / composer Michael Zapruder, to see what happens when poems are sung instead of spoken. Potent with weird, funny, and singular possibilities, Pink Thunder's playful and startling songs take their form entirely from the shape of the poems from which they are made. The result is a collection of musical readings both compelling and surprising. You are invited to listen.

This full-color hardcover book reproduces the poems in lush hand-lettered versions illuminated by Arrington de Dionyso. It also contains an artist’s statement by Michael Zapruder and an introduction by Scott Pinkmountain. In addition, it comes with a CD containing twenty-two tracks. The book also features photographs from the recording sessions and the Wave Poetry Bus Tour. 

A one-of-a-kind project with a unique design to match, Pink Thunder will undoubtedly change the way you both think about and experience poetry and music. Contributing poets include: Joshua Beckman, David Berman, Carrie St. George Comer, Gillian Conoley, Bob Hicok, Noelle Kocot, Dorothea Lasky, Brett Fletcher Lauer, Anthony McCann, Valzhyna Mort, Hoa Nguyen, Sierra Nelson, Tyehimba Jess, Travis Nichols, D.A. Powell, Matthew Rohrer, Mary Ruefle, James Tate, Joe Wenderoth, Dara Weir, and Matthew Zapruder.

Contributor Bio

Michael Zapruder is an award-winning composer, songwriter and recording artist, and a co-founder of San Francisco's Howells Transmitter arts collective and record label. His albums include 52 Songs (1999), This is a Beautiful Town (2003), New Ways of Letting Go (2006, Howells Transmitter), Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope (2009, SideCho Records), and Pink Thunder (2012, Black Ocean Books, The Kora Records), a collection of free verse pop art-songs made from the poems of more than twenty contemporary American poets. He was awarded the 2013 Glasow Fellowship for music composition at California State University East Bay, where he is doing graduate work. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife and two sons.