The Liquid Muse

Bartender Publishes Second Book!

(posted on behalf of my pal, Carly Sachs: author, blogger, poetess)

People ask two things usually of bartenders. These being in no particular order---

"What should I drink?" or "What do you like to make?" and many of us bartenders either love or hate this question depending on how busy the bar is and who the person asking the question is. It's our time to shine and make you something amazing, show off a new wine or liquor or dazzle you with our knowledge about spirits...all of which I could do at that point, but there is something more than alcohol that draws people to a bar. For me, it's the conversation, which brings me to my next question: "What else do you do?"

When I first started bartending, I took this to be an insult, as if bartending wasn't sufficient on it's own, that people expected me to be doing something else. I started bartending in DC, so perhaps that explains something, but now, I realize, people want to connect with you. More than someone to pour you a drink, they're sitting at the bar for another reason. Luckily, I have some pretty good answers to this question too.

When I started bartending, I was a professor of Creative Writing. Now I'm on an academic fellowship studying Biblical Hebrew and Talmud. And I have two books published. One of my own poetry, but the second is a project that's much more meaningful than that. My second book of poems, the why and later, an anthology of poems about rape and sexual assault was just released from deep cleveland press. The part that I am most excited about is that half of the profits from every book will be donated back to rape crisis centers.

I sold a considerable amount of my first book behind the bar, and that was great for book sales, this book has the potential to do much more good than sustain independent literary publishing. I've found that people who care about cocktails, care a lot about this world and what we take out of it and what we put into it. Coincidentally, my book sells for as much as a martini where I bartend. So, twisting the words of Sally Struthers, for the cost of a martini, you could make a real difference in a woman's life when you purchase the book!

With this anthology, Carly Sachs has drawn together poems of such heartbreaking eloquence and humanity that I felt as though I was placing my hands on raw wounds. Expect to be moved–it is impossible to read this collection and not be disabused, shocked, disturbed, outraged and eventually brought to a place of empathetic tenderness.

---Beth DellaRocco

New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Contributors: Alice Anderson, Julianna Baggott, Ellen Bass, Jan Beatty, Erin Belieu, Laure Anne Bosselaar, Jeanne Bryner, Teresa Carson, Helen Marie Casey, Grace Cavalieri, Lucille Clifton, Nicole Cooley, Michele F. Cooper, Teri Ellen Cross, Toi Dericotte, Debra DiBlasi, Frances Driscoll, Denise Duhamel, Molly Fisk, Audrey Friedman, Nicole Gervace, Clarinda Harriss, Marie Howe, Julia Kasdorf, Laurie Klein, Karen Kovacik, Maxine Kumin, Joan Larkin, Dorianne Laux, Harriet Levin, Frannie Lindsay, Denise Low, Linda McCarriston, Amanda McGuire, Erin Murphy, Nita Penfold, Meg Peterson, Marge Piercy, Margaret Randall,Adrienne Rich, Melanie Rivera, Carly Sachs, Ada Jill Schneider, Jackie Sheeler, Sue Standing, Kiely Sweatt, Cheryl Townsend, Mary Weems, Ruth Whitman, Rosemary Winslow, Kathleen Winter, Nellie Wong.

Available in January 2008 in bookstores, Amazon.com, and Deep Cleveland Press