Guy Birchard
Pressed Wafer
Boston, MA
(c) 2003
tiny book of sizable words. The poet lives in Saskatchewan. Or did in 2003 when this collection came out. I like the way Grover on Sesame Street says Saskatchewan. The poems here are thin and tasty. Wherever Moose Jaw is.....
the fin de siècle poems
Guy Birchard
Pressed Wafer Press
(c) 2003
Rob has written about the man, all I can say is that this thin sliver of nothing is worth the find.
Karen Weiser
Pressed Wafer
Boston, MA
(c)2002
Even with a digital trail sometimes it's best to imagine where the shadow of a poet lingers now. After books published by the likes of Ugly Duckling Presse, a poet like this one can claim a space on the Academy of American Poets website and then not provide any info whatsoever. If you will, a white ghost instead of the traditional black.
What I do know is that this chapbook by the now deceased and discontinued Pressed Wafer is on a table in front of me: half smiling. The booklet is divided into two sections, actually. "Out of the Body there are Planned Things" for Fanny Howe is first, a crash course for those (like me) unfamiliar with Ms. Weiser's work and then the somewhat misleading titled section "8 Positive Trees" taking it's name from a sculpture by Menashe Kadishman. (there are only 7 poems)
I love the brevity of her work here. It's refreshingly deep and subtly so. The words don't have to scream their message, the flow is more of a trickling creek - not the Mississippi River emptying into the Gulf of Mexico.
Midnight Antelopes
Darlene Gold
Pressed Wafer Press
(c) 2003
It's impossible to write about any book published by Pressed Wafer without mentioning William Corbett, the co-founder of the press who died in 2018. Pressed Wafer ended when he did. Sadly.
The cover image of this chapbook was provided by Brenda Iijima.
The torch has been passed, not extinguished.
