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Last Update: October 10, 2026
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Welcome to The Lost Bookshelf where all Cervena Barva Press books are sold.

We no longer sell books on consignment, used books or new books by other presses or authors.
Our space at the Armory in Somerville, MA closed in December 2021. After being there for almost 9 years, we decided to leave. The Lost Bookshelf is a part of Cervena Barva Press. It is safe to order our books.

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Cervena Barva Press/The Lost Bookshelf
P.O. Box 53 / Union Square
Somerville, MA 02143

We publish many books each year. If you would like to be on our mailing list, email Gloria at editor@cervenabarvapress.com You will not be bombarded with emails. We do not believe in that. You will receive our monthly newsletter, new book releases, reading events and workshops offered. That is it. We NEVER share your email!

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Pre-release: The Things They Forgot to Tell Us When They Left
If you order this book it will ship on or about October 29th

The Things They Forgot to Tell Us When They Left by Christopher Bowen Červená Barva Press, 2026

Christopher Bowen, author of the novella When I Return to You, I Will Be Unfed, and the non-fiction Debt, was semi-finalist in the 2017 Faulkner-Wisdom Novella Competition and honorable mention in the 45th New Millennium Writing Awards in non-fiction. His short story collection, The Things They Forgot to Tell Us When They Left, is available from Červená Barva Press and he is currently working on a memoir.

Christopher Bowen's work tends to deal with heartache and loss, but pain as a precursor to growth and change. The characters in his fiction are down-and-out, forgotten people, but often through compromises and resolve, they are poetic, if not graceful. There is an overarching story, progression and theme of rural and post-industrial Midwestern America as pastoral backdrop that is incorporated into the narrative that includes familial kinship experiences, blurring the line between flash fiction and flash non-fiction.

"These twenty-five gems by Christopher Bowen showcase the power of flash fiction in the hands of a master. Bowen knows how to wield a sentence and create vivid, compelling, cinematic scenes that play out for the reader like short films. There's a magical quality to these works, with enigmatic characters of depth and substance. These are humans on the brink of change or transformative realization. As a reader, I felt thrust into worlds and characters so fully realized as to suggest a novel's worth of story in the space of only a few pages. That takes tremendous skill. Breathtaking, emotionally evocative stories you'll want to read and reread and keep close. This collection is sheer beauty. Highly recommended."
—Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works

"With a tenderness and transparency that surpasses the most emotive writing, Bowen guides us through life's potholes and triumphs. Each story, no matter its length, is a piece of gold that should be held in your hands, warmed up until it's ripe, and read again and again. There is no overreach here. Bowen writes with a gentleness that is rare yet relatable, his head on your chest, honest and unprovoked. If it was possible to fall in love with a book, this would be it."
—Len Kuntz, author of This is Me, Being Brave

$18.00 | ISBN: 979-8-9965734-3-1 | 41 Pages

A Hard Winter for Living by Jean Flanagan

A Hard Winter for Living by Jean Flanagan Červená Barva Press, 2026

Jean Flanagan is the author of three books of poetry: Ibbetson Street (Garden Street Press), Black Lightning (Cedar Hill Books) and The Language of Two (Finishing Line Press). Flanagan is a volunteer for "Changing Lives Through Literature" an alternative sentencing program in Massachusetts. She is one of the founders of the Arlington Center for the Arts and the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Arlington, Massachusetts.

In Jean Flanagan's memoir, A Hard Winter for Living, written in poetry and prose, she describes the disintegration of a marriage and the losses that occur in her life after her husband, Frank is diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease. As Frank's illness evolves, he becomes detached from his life and reality. The disease started slowly, with small changes that occurred, like getting lost on the way to the mall and getting angry over an event he thought happened. He couldn't stop raging. Frank became physically and verbally abusive and struck out at Jean and their daughter. Their neighbors thought he drank too much because of his garbled speech and odd behavior. Her family lived in terror, grief and heartbreak leaving their lives in shambles. This is a deeply moving personal story of loss, perseverance, and finally forgiveness.

"A Hard Winter for Living by Jean Flanagan teaches us something about life—how to marshal through and persevere even in the most difficult of times. A triumph of the spirit and imagination. The book can accompany you in the darkest of times—showing us the way with its compassion, beauty, and message of hope."
—Lee Varon, author of The Last Bed

"Jean Flanagan is both poet and teacher. In the Prologue, she tells the reader that her memoir, A Hard Winter for Living is an instructional "manual" for anyone living with a spouse who has received the Alzheimer's diagnosis. It is much more. Flanagan's memoir, which reads backwards from her husband's diagnosis alternating prose - interviews with her husband, her daughter, and her own reflections - to her sparse powerful poetry as she empties her heart - "I lost my soul, and it has taken me years of prayer to find it again." Jean Flanagan's soul is vibrant and prominent in this book, taking on the painful secrets of a difficult marriage, generational trauma, and love, to find redemption and strength in reflection. This memoir is a confessional mirror - never asking for pity - but imbuing strength to both the poet and the reader."
—Anne Elezabeth Pluto, PhD, author of The Deepest Part of Dark

$18.00 | ISBN: 979-8-9965734-2-4 | 53 Pages

Alive in These Woods by Sally Bliumis-Dunn

Alive in These Woods by Sally Bliumis-Dunn Červená Barva Press, 2026

Sally Bliumis-Dunn is an Associate Editor-at-Large and features writer for PLUME. She teaches the Personal Essay at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. Her poems have appeared in 32 Poems, New Ohio Review, On the Seawall, the Paris Review, PLUME, The Poetry Foundation, Poetry London, Maine Public Radio's Poems From Here, Prairie Schooner, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Writer's Almanac, The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day and Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry. In 2002, she was a finalist for the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Her first full-length collection, Talking Underwater was published by Wind Publications in 2007. In 2008, she was asked to read in the "Love Poems Program" at the Library of Congress. Her second book, Second Skin, was published by Wind Publications in 2010. Her chapbook, Galapagos Poems, was published by Kattywompus Press in 2016. Her third book, Echolocation was published by Plume Editions/Madhat Press in March, 2018. Echolocation was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award, Julie Suk Award and the Poets by the Sea Prize. She lives in Armonk, New York and Harpswell, Maine, with her husband, John. The share four children, Ben, Angie, Kaitlin and Fiona as well as two grandchildren, Bodhi and Marlee.

"I read Alive in These Woods in one sitting and then read it again. At times I felt like crying, at other others, like laughing, but always I was dumbstruck by Sally Bliumis-Dunn's authenticity, her tenderness, her lyrical brilliance. Each poem is like a painting I want to hang above my desk, or an insight I want to frame. Whether reflecting on midlife, marital struggles, motherhood, encounters with hawks and butterflies, or the ache of loneliness, she is also writing about the fundamental questions of existence: how do we live, find meaning, and transform ourselves in the midst of our troubled lives?"
—NIN ANDREWS

"Sally Bliumis-Dunn's atmospheric poems are minutely and beautifully observed. They are caught up in the whirling metamorphoses effected by a singularly lyrical and alchemical imagination. A wonderful book for both the eye and the feeling mind."
—VIJAY SESHADRI

"The poems in Alive in These Woods reach into the natural world while also exploring family, aging, and mortality. These poems are clear-eyed, tender, alive to both darkness and light and to the fleetingness of both."
—SUZANNE CLEARY

"I love Sally Bliumis-Dunn's work!"
—NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

$18.00 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-62-8 | 69 Pages

The Weight of Certain Moments by Robert Scotellaro

The Weight of Certain Moments by Robert Scotellaro Červená Barva Press, 2026

Robert Scotellaro is the author of 10 flash and microfiction collections including, most recently: From the Book of Atmospheres (Bamboo Dart Press, 2025), Breath and Shadow (co-authored with Meg Pokrass, MadHat Press 2024), Quick Adjustments (Blue Light Press, 2023), and Ways to Read the World (Scantic Books, 2022), as well as 5 collections of poetry. He has, along with James Thomas, co-edited New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, published by W.W. Norton & Co. His work has appeared widely and is included in Norton's Flash Fiction International and Flash Fiction America. Additionally, his work has been published in 7 Best Small Fictions and 3 Best Microfiction award anthologies. He is the winner of Zone 3's Rainmaker Prize in Poetry and the Blue Light Book Award for his fiction. Robert is one of the founding donors to the Ransom Flash Fiction Collection at The University of Texas, Austin. He lives in San Francisco. Visit him at: www.robertscotellaro.com

The Weight of Certain Moments focuses on that territory where prose poetry/poetic prose/microfiction sometimes blend to form works that blur genre distinctions. What dwells between the lines, what is alluded to, speaks to what likely, is more at stake. Here, the borders are flexible beyond word count, a "middle world" where forms conjoin and are free to find their footing. And, there is tragicomedy in many of these pieces, reflecting that which is disquieting, in counterbalance to what is restorative.

The collection is divided into three sections: "Imperfect Gods" (family, personal and universal), "Connecting Flights" (our relationships with their tripwires, pathos, irony, and humor), and "Approximations" (our longings, misfires, revelations and connections with all their weights and pulleys).

The Weight of Certain Moments traverses this variegated territory, familiar, yet at a slant and approaching the vanishing point from unexpected directions.

"In The Weight of Certain Moments, Robert Scotellaro once again displays his mastery of the prose poem/micro-story. There's a brilliantly ironic imagination at play in these pieces, in which a man working at a sky factory attempts to fit celestial bodies into bottles; a father shoots at his son with a gun that fires the American flag; a teenager experiences the consequences of The Bikini Wars, and skydiving honeymooners confess wind-altered secrets. Scotellaro dazzles with his ability to create worlds in a few sentences. Each moment in this book of weighted moments brings us face to face with our human frailties and foibles, but the saving grace is always our stories and our poetry. Scotellaro hits the mark again and again. This book is deeply moving and funny as hell!"
—Jeff Friedman, author of Ashes in Paradise and The Marksman

"The Weight of Certain Moments reminds us that Robert Scotellaro is an absolute master of the narrative prose poem. Eighty-five times, he creates a distinctive voice with odd, but somehow necessary details. Eighty-five times, he manages to surprise. The eccentricity of the speakers and their tales is so cleverly created that the fantastic feels normal. I enjoyed this from beginning to end."
—Gary Fincke, author of The Corridors of Longing and The History of the Baker's Dozen

"Every prose poem in The Weight of Certain Moments by Robert Scotellaro opens the door to an original, amazing world: a mother practicing archery in the kitchen, featherless chickens in a hurricane sky, mimes ranting on the street, a salesman selling mistakes door to door... In this extraordinary collection, each poem brings us to pinpoint moments of absolute clarity, evoking epiphanies of wisdom, pain, humor, and understanding. With masterful strokes, Scotellaro's work beckons us to see, feel, and become part of the moment ourselves. These prose poem gems are wonders to behold and be astonished by."
—Guy Biederman, author of Here's Where We Get Off and Edible Grace

"The Weight of Certain Moments is yet another brilliant volume of small resonating tales from a gifted master. Robert Scotellaro's compassion for his subjects reveals the depth of his understanding and sympathy for what we all experience and feel as we step tentatively through the challenges of being mere mortals in a world which all too often presses in on us. The poetic gems within these covers attests to his keen insights into the foibles and triumphs we all traverse. This recent collection marks another milestone in Scotellaro’s long career as a singular and innovative creative force."
—Michael C. Keith, author of Sunglasses in a Dark Room and Bodies in Recline

$18.95 | ISBN: 979-8-9965734-0-0 | 92 Pages

Bad Decade by Polina Eisenberg (Memoir)

Bad Decade by Polina Eisenberg Červená Barva Press & Interpoezia, Inc., 2026

Polina Eisenberg was born in Russia in 1991 and moved to the United States in 2000. She was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, and attended Hunter College in Manhattan, New York, from 2009 to 2014, earning a BA in Media Studies. Shortly afterward, she pursued a nursing career in Denver, Colorado, completing an 11-month Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Regis University. She then worked for two years in a psychiatric hospital. Polina currently lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with her beloved boyfriend, Anthony, and their cat, Indiana Jones. She continues to practice as a nurse and enjoys photography, hiking, and filmmaking.

Bad Decade is Polina's story: a messy, aching, and brutally honest journey through growing up when the world never felt built for you. After leaving Russia, she's thrown into a new country, a new language, a new version of herself that never quite fits. What starts as loneliness turns into something darker; nights that blur together, bad choices that feel like relief, and a mind that won't stop pulling her under.

But this isn't just a story about falling apart. It's about what comes after. It's about clawing your way back: one mistake, one apology, one moment at a time. As Polina learns to stay sober and start over, she discovers that recovery isn't easy. It's harsh, chaotic, and elusive.

Bad Decade is a raw coming-of-age saga about addiction, identity, and the hard, beautiful work of saving yourself.

"Bad Decade is an amazing literary document of teenage addiction and recovery, the resurrection of the strong soul. Written in concise, informative language, it is full of passion for survival. It is a rare document, in the form of a diary, reflecting the formative years of the troubled but wholesome person reclaiming their life through art."
—Andrey Gritsman, author of Crossing the Line (Cervena Barva Press) and Stranger at Home (New Meridian Arts)

"This biographical novel is written not only with compelling sincerity but also with a natural stylistic and compositional deftness that is a rare find, especially in a first book. A gripping page-turner, a modern-day Bildungsroman, and, most of all, a work of true literary talent."
—Alexander Stessin, author of 13 volumes of Russian-language prose and poetry, winner of the 2020 NOS New Literature Prize, 2014 Russian Book Prize, and the 2007 Tamizdat Prize

$19.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-99-4 | 183 Pages

Ash by Gloria Mindock from Glass Lyre Press

Ash by Gloria Mindock Glass Lyre Press, 2021

Gloria Mindock is the author of I Wish Francisco Franco Would Love Me (Nixes Mate Books), Whiteness of Bone (Glass Lyre Press), La Portile Raiului (Ars Longa Press, Romania) translated into the Romanian by Flavia Cosma, Nothing Divine Here, (U Šoku Štampa), and Blood Soaked Dresses (Ibbetson). Widely published in the USA and abroad, her poetry has been translated and published into the Romanian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Spanish, Estonian, Albanian, bulgarian, Turkish, and French. Gloria has been published in numerous literary journals including Gargoyle, Web Del Sol, spoKe, Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Ibbetson, The Rye Whiskey Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Unlikely Stories, Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and Nixes Mate Review and anthology. Gloria has been awarded the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award and was the recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Award for Community Service by the Newton Writing and Publishing Center. She received the fifth and fortieth Moon Prize from Writing in a Woman's Voice. Gloria was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018.

In Gloria Mindock's powerful new book, the flames of love die out and the ashes linger until they dissolve into air. The body is hostage, in charred relics of failed intimacies—The burnt-out ends of smoky days (T.S. Eliot). There's beauty in the truth of Mindock's words and images: Things got smokier, battling the embers with//false waters. And there's hope: Not everyone believes in destruction.// All the heart wants is to beat. Above all, these poems radiate feeling, compassionately aware, attuned to a world of broken love that is burned beyond recognition, the ashes drifting and settling: how much sorrow can this heart take?// There is never an answer. Ash sears and sings.
—Dzvinia Orlowsky, author of Bad Harvest

In Ash, Gloria Mindock writes a gritty, beautifully haunting collection of poetry. Ash is what remains behind after destruction, ruin, death, and burning. Similarly, the poems in this collection are what will remain. Fight the shadows and wade through the darkness on a path paved by Mindock's vivid imagery, stark language, and dynamic voice, all of which, make for a most memorable experience. Now more than ever, we need these poems. With the utmost economy of words, skillful syntax, and emotional connections, each poem reverberates into the depths of your consciousness. Dark, intense, and wholly unique, Ash, by Gloria Mindock is what you've been waiting for—a collection of poetry that consumes and smolders. Are you ready?
—Renuka Raghavan, author of Out of the Blue and The Face I Desire

Gloria Mindock is a poet with singular vision: in Ash, a human heart is rolled out, then baked, then thrown to the birds; broken crucifixes are shoved into junk drawers and gather dust; a spurned/murdered woman turns into a beautiful plant that gives her ex-lover a rash. With mordant, Pinter-esque wit, Mindock explores just how far love, and even human decency, can unravel—to the point of arson, to the point of war.

Ash begin with a series of poems about lethal house fires that may be literal or metaphorical ("my skin was burned by your compulsion to be famous"), then expands to pinpoint the similar essence of human cruelty that enables soldiers to kill. As the narrator of "Doomed by the Numbers" explains: "the fact is people will still go on brutally/killing each other./Who will take my place and write about it?"

Ash concludes with an engaging, Rabelaisian roundelay of voices—mini-plays, summed up in just two stanzas, about complicated relationships between two people.

Once again, with Ash, Mindock proves herself to be unafraid of the dark. She is truly a leading, contemporary master of the edgy.
—Karen Friedland, author of Places That Are Gone and Tales from the Teacup Palace

Passionate and observant, Gloria Mindock is a tragic poet. Her books are wounds revisited. She knows that nothing, never heals.

"With a rolling pin in my hand, I roll your heart out flat... stop it from beating. The redness of blood turns to wax, sticky while wet." (Baked)

She senses the pain of the world in her being.

"The void looms deep, scorched like the desert blowing aimlessly." (Exit)

As her latest book Ash attests without doubt, Gloria is both a warrior and a martyr. Her words are swords that slowly transform into tears.

Her anger at life's injustice is mighty, but mighty is her generosity and her openness towards repair, harmony and universal peace. A must-read Ash conducts the reader through thorny labyrinths of pain and despair, allowing now and then a glimpse of ultimate resolve and liberation in verses of a rare beauty:

"...but gravity is about to free me into space... People will look at me day and night and ask, "what is it?" There is no control over what happens. The cathedral is high and my freckles fell on the floor as I left. Paleness now, that no one sees, but in the universe, I will be a prism." (Gravity)

"...A hunger surrounds us, dust gathers, and is wiped off, space evading all this as songs of the wind come through the window and we all hum." (Room)
—Flavia Cosma, author of In the Arms of the Father, Val-David, QC

$16.00 | ISBN: 978-1-941783-75-7 | 71 Pages

Our first children's book! Little Brown Mouse
by Jack Mindock, Gloria Mindock, and Kellis Mindock Dryer

Little Brown Mouse (Children) by Jack Mindock, Gloria Mindock, and Kellis Mindock Dryer Illustrations by William J. Kelle Červená Barva Press, 2020

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jack Mindock (b. 1926), author of Little Brown Mouse, spent sixty years of his life as an educator. He was a junior high language arts teacher and K-12 principal in Illinois. He is a World War II Navy veteran and historian who frequently has speaking engagements about his knowledge and experiences. He started telling Little Brown Mouse stories to his children when they were young. They were oral stories, made up as he went along. It was Jack's desire to have some new Little Brown Mouse adventures in print and published for future generations of children to enjoy.

Kellis Mindock Dryer, daughter of author Jack Mindock, is a pianist and piano teacher in Cary, NC. She enjoyed composing the two Little Brown Mouse songs in the book. They can be sung with or without the piano accompaniment. If the children and parents reading this book cannot read music, they are welcome to recite the lyrics as poetry or make up their own melodies.

Gloria Mindock is the author of five books of poetry, most recently, I wish Francisco Franco Would Love Me (Nixes Mate books, 2018). She is the founding editor of Cervena Barva Press and one of the USA editors for Levure Litteraire (France). Widely published in the USA and abroad, her poetry has been translated and published into eight languages. Gloria has been awarded the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award and was the recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Award for Community Service by the Newton Writing and Publishing Center. She also has been awarded the fifth and fortieth Moon Prize by Writing in a Woman's Voice. She was the Poet Laureate in Somerville, MA in 2017 & 2018.

NOTE
When I was three, four, and five years old, my Dad, "Daddy Jack," would make up bedtime stories every night about the adventures of “Little Brown Mouse.” He would leave me in suspense nightly. I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next to Little Brown Mouse. Why Little Brown Mouse? Because Little Brown Mouse did come to my house! This book, Little Brown Mouse, was written for mothers, fathers, and others to read to young children at bedtime.
-Gloria Mindock

PREFACE
Welcome to the land of curiosity and adventure! Little Brown Mouse is a bedtime story to make you think, be curious, and ask questions. Here are a few questions to get you started: Have you ever seen a mouse? What color are mice? What do they eat? Where do they live?

$13.95 | ISBN: 978-1-950063-35-2 | 28 Pages