This interview originally appeared as a Substack post on Sapling, Issue 824.
Published on Sapling via Substack:
https://substack.com
Feature: Slapering Hol Press
Sapling spoke with Margo Taft Stever, Susana H. Case, and Mervyn Taylor, editors of Slapering Hol Press.
From left: Margo Taft Stever, Susana H. Case, and Mervyn Taylor
SAPLING: Founded in 1990, Slapering Hol Press (SHP) is one of the oldest chapbook publishers in the United States. For those just learning about Slapering Hol or hoping to gain a greater insight into the press, what are two or three key things you’d like writers to know?
MARGO TAFT STEVER, SUSANA H. CASE, and MERVYN TAYLOR: Founded in 1990 by Margo Taft Stever, Slapering Hol Press is a micro-press, the small press imprint of the Hudson Valley Writers Center (writerscenter.org). The mission of the press is to advance the national and international conversation of poetry and poetics and to provide opportunities for emerging poets, mainly those whose work has not yet appeared in book form. Mervyn Taylor, Susana H. Case, and Margo Taft Stever are the current series editors.
In 2008, Slapering Hol Press inaugurated the Conversation Series in which a well-known woman poet chooses an emerging poet to appear in the same chapbook with an interview at the end. After the first chapbook in which Elizabeth Alexander, before she was Obama’s inaugural poet, chose Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, other well-known poets include Denise Duhamel with Amy Lemmon; Molly Peacock with Amy M. Clark; Kim Addonizio with Brittany Perham; Kimiko Hahn with Tamiko Beyer; Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon with Leela Chantrelle; Toi Derricotte with Dawn Lundy Martin; and Dorianne Laux & Leila Chatti.
In 2014, in association with the African Poetry Book Fund, Prairie Schooner, and the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, Slapering Hol Press published Seven New Generation African Poets, a boxed set of eight chapbooks, edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. The seven poets, TJ Dema, Clifton Gachagua, Tsitsi Jaji, Nick Makoha, Ladan Osman, Warsan Shire, and Len Verwey, have gone on to publish additional books of poetry and win major awards. As Kwami Dawes states in the introductory chapbook, “Ultimately, the poems manage to chart in rich and textured ways the idea of Africa in our contemporary space. We are finding in these poets a cadre of writers who remain committed to the rich and enduring challenge of finding a voice and idiom that manages to reflect a quality of modernity operating in African cultures.”
SAPLING: Where do you imagine Slapering Hol Press to be headed over the next few years, as you approach forty years of chapbook publishing?
M.T.S., S.H.C., and M.T.: This year, in addition to continuing our chapbook competition, we are working with Construction Magazine of Hangzhou to publish four volumes of translated Chinese poetry. The poets who are well known in China but who are relatively unknown in the United States are Lan Lan: From Here to Here, New & Selected Poems, translated by Diani Shi and George O’Connell; Quan Zi: Full Moon and Withered Lotus, translated by Jill Zheng; Zhang Shughang: Snow Room, translated by Kate Costello; and Spider Economics: New & Selected Poems by Jiyun Huang, translated by Weijia Pan. We hope to publish more international work in the future and to continue our efforts to present the work of emerging poets through Slapering Hol Press’s Chapbook Competition and the Conversation Series.
SAPLING: Have you encountered any noteworthy challenges over the years? Anything you wish more authors would know from your side of the desk?
M.T.S., S.H.C., and M.T.: SHP needs to develop more staff, fundraising, and interoffice management capability, a challenge to many small presses. The press is also working to develop a succession plan. Another goal we have set is to explore more outreach possibilities.
SAPLING: You run an annual, national chapbook competition each spring. What is the first thing that you look for in a submission? Any deal breakers?
M.T.S., S.H.C., and M.T.: We look for serious intent, for passion. Because of the chapbook’s concise form, we often look for thematic consistency. While we trend toward narrative poetry, we are open to experimental forms. Any hint of plagiarism or use of AI would be a deal breaker.
SAPLING: What one or two small press publishers deserve more recognition, and why should more people be seeking out their books (or perhaps seeking a home for their own writing there)?
M.T.S., S.H.C., and M.T.:
Broadstone Books
Milk & Cake Press
Beltway Editions
Hanging Loose
The Word Works
SAPLING: Just for fun (because we like fun), if Slapering Hol Press was cooking brunch, what would be on the menu?
M.T.S., S.H.C., and M.T.: One of us is from Trinidad and we thought your readers might enjoy something other than eggs and pancakes. This is a traditional working-class recipe using okra (ochro) very popular on the island:
Ochro & Rice:
Ingredients
1 lb. box of long grain white rice
About 10-15 ochroes, stem and tips cut off, cut into ¼-inch pieces
Pack of salted codfish, available at most grocery stores
About 7-8 chunks of pumpkin
Salted cut-up pigtail (Optional)
Avocado slices
Season with: scallion, thyme, pimento peppers, onion, tomato, black pepper, garlic
Cooking
In a wide saucepan or frying pan, over medium heat, drop ochro and pumpkin pieces with just enough water to cover. Season with black pepper, garlic powder or two cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Add onion and tomato, sliced, and rest of seasoning.
Cook until ochro is partly melted, a bright green color to the whole mixture.
Boil codfish in a separate pan to remove some of the salt. Drain and crumble. Add to the ochro pot, also adding water, as needed, so the mix doesn’t dry out, and to facilitate cooking of rice, which at this time should be added. Stir together and cover. Lower flame. In about 10-15 minutes, rice should be fully cooked.
Serve with the avocado slices.
If pigtail is a choice, boil pieces several times to soften and remove salt. May be added or kept separate. Dish should comfortably serve 4-6.
SAPLING: Thank you so much for sharing your insights into SHP—and this delicious recipe for Ochro & Rice!
Margo Taft Stever’s poetry books include The End of Horses (Broadstone Books, 2022); Cracked Piano (CavanKerry Press, 2019); and Frozen Spring (Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry, 2002). In 2025, her chapbook Bareback Rider was published by Broadstone Books. She is founder, former director, and current member of the board of the Hudson Valley Writers Center. She is also the founder of Slapering Hol Press. Website: margotaftstever.com
Susana H. Case is an award-winning author of nine books of poetry, most recently, If This Isn’t Love (Broadstone Books, 2023) and co-editor with Margo Taft Stever of I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe (Milk & Cake Press, 2022), awarded Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize. Website: susanahcase.com
Mervyn Taylor, a Trinidad-born poet, is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Country of Warm Snow (Shearsman Books, 2020), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and The Last Train (Broadstone Books, 2023). His latest collection is Getting Through: New & Selected Poems (Beltway Editions, 2024). Taylor is an editor at Slapering Hol Press. Website: mervyntaylor.com
