Kraken Press Publishes Biggest Chapbook Ever

YUKON GOLD: Poemes de terre
by Mike Finley

ST. PAUL, August 26, 2010 -- Kraken Press, a publisher of last resort, has issued what may be the largest chapbook ever published.

The book is YUKON GOLD: Poemes de terre, by St. Paul writer Mike Finley.  It is a collected works issued one year after the death of Finley's daughter Daniele.

The book (518 pages) is huge by poetry standards.Finley says he did not set out to be "the quantity guy," but that the book grew in the compiling, eventually leaving the page entirely and linking up with the digital world. The book contains over 50 video links. 


"The four Yukon Gold potatoes on the cover represent the four members of my family," Finley said. "A spud is laid out horizontally, representing death."

Though the book is available free for downloading, donations are accepted for Robots & Pirates, the suicide counseling foundation founded by Finley and his wife Rachel Frazin, following Daniele's death.

Poemes de terre includes stories about family and growth, art and truth, life and death, God and no-God.

Kraken Press issued this statement:

Yukon Gold follows in the tradition of Leaves of Grass . Being published electronically, it can be revised up to the moment of death,

Yukon Gold  contains not just text but annotations, encyclopedic citations, and "behind the scenes" explanations of what passages mean or don't mean. 

Yukon Gold is pure multimedia. Over 70 of the items include video versions. Click on the blue headline and the page's YouTube counterpart appears on your screen. Example: 'A Monk at the Door.'

Yukon Gold is an online tome. It can be read and linked to anywhere there is an IP connection. No trees were pulped to make its pages. 

Yukon Gold is 100% free. No money has changed hands in the creation of this gritty saga, or will.

There will be no remainders table at Barnes & Noble, and no secondary marketplace at Amazon.com. This nonconformance breaks the back of the man. We do not dwell on the grid.

As an added inducement, this book contains an authenticated signature by W. H. Auden.

Kraken Press invites reviews. But the event is just as suitable for use by columnists, feature writers. Possible topics:

  • POETRY THAT MOVES -- video poems, a multimedia solution to the problem of poetry (no one reading or caring)

  • WRITING AND GRIEF -- how one man put his broken heart to work and found healing

  • HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT -- how writing done online work, or published electronically, tends to be neglected by conventional media

Media interested in covering this event may:

YUKON GOLD: Poemes de terre, with a key to the mysteries , by Mike Finley

ISBN No. 978-0-615-39893-8

About Mike Finley:

Raised in Amherst, Ohio, but a resident of St. Paul since 1969, Mike has published numerous collections of line-break writings, including 22 drawn on for this book. He is winner of a 1984 Wisconsin State Arrists Fellowship, and appeared in The 1985 Pushcart Prize Anthology XI. In 1995 his book Why Teams Don't Work was named "Best management Book, The Americas." by the Global Business Book Awards.


Mike's  work has appeared in Paris Review, New American & Canadian Poetry, Invisible City, Floating Island, Guideposts, NASA News and Rolling Stone.

For more information:
call Kraken Press or Mike Finley at (651) 644-4540