Counterpoint

Counterpoint, the first full collection of poems by David Alpaugh, was selected out of over 800 manuscripts for the seventh annual Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize by Story Line Press in 1994. The subjects of the book's contemporary, witty, bizarre, and often moving poems range from POWs and salespeople to art and the dead. Alpaugh's works speak to one another-child to adult, animal to human, ad man to poet, New Jersey to California, and past to present. He writes with affection and care for each of these points of unlikely connection. Harold Witt called Alpaugh "a unique voice to hear now and to listen for in the future." More than twenty-five years after Counterpoint's initial publication, these words ring more true than ever.

Established in 1985 by Robert McDowell and Mark Jarman, Story Line Press gained an international reputation as a press that championed narrative and formal poetry, innovative anthologies, and criticism written in a public voice rather than academic style. Despite limited resources, Story Line became one of the most influential literary presses of the era publishing new and established writers.