Jesse Nissim
Furniture Press
Towson University/Baltimore
(c)2013
Edited by Christophe Casamassima with cover art by Jodi Hoover, this chapbook is a Towson collaborative effort. The cover is stunning. The artwork of Ms. Hoover is worth investigating.
Meow Press
Buffalo, NY
(c)1998
The Poet met the press and they were joined. At least for this staple bound project. Here's what Meow had to say about themselves in the late 1990s :
Meow Press was established in August of 1993 as a response to the New Cost festival and also the rapid proliferation of electronic publishing. In the case of the former, there is the hope that by getting involved it might be possible to reopen the anthologizing-closure process set in motion by that fateful gathering; that it might be possible to exist in a state where the printing of a book of poems might be - in the tradition of printer-poets such as Lyn Hejinian - an extension of one's own activity of writing. In the case of the latter, the romance of making books by hand that utilized the hot carbon transfer process as ultimately temporal ephemera, yet palpable physical without too much nostalgia for the Book.
An obsessive typography startup kit.
This is one of 300 printed. I am so lucky.
Allen P. West
White Eagle Coffee Store Press
Fox River Grove, IL
(c)2002
This book confuses me. The poems are about grief and loss (of a spouse) and have nothing directly to do with the title of the collection or the image. None that I could glean.
I am mostly intrigued by the Press, to be honest. Such an unusual name. Even the town the Press is located in, distinctive. They have a website that appears to have been created at the dawn of the internet age. Most of the titles of their published works do not have links to them. Does this mean they are all out of print?
One of the poems is entitled "I am a Jar". Well, I am con-fused.
Elizabeth Willis
Shuffaloff books
Buffalo, NY
(c) 1992
Handsewn chapbook. #42 of 100 printed. A prime example of a "thin sliver of nothing".
Karen Propp
Spirit Mountain Press
Fairbanks, AK
(c) 1983
This is a beautiful chapbook with cover design by Toki Oshima. Handsewn binding. 21 pages, just a lovely collection.
Elizabeth Cantwell
(c) 2014
Check out their catalog on-site.
This particular volume seems a transitional phase (the cover isn't all that)
Jessica Smith
above/ground press
Ontario, Canada
(c)2013
Poetry presses and the poets who populate them are a small circle of dedicated (possibly crazed) wordsmiths - and fanatics, to be fair. Poets chisel words onto blank pieces of paper or blank computer screens the way sculptors find their voice in rock.
Small presses, due to the necessity of their obsession and the lack of finances (generally), tend to be the most inventive in presentation because they are dealing with 'tiny slivers of nothing' as it is - slide a thin chapbook between large anthology volumes by reputable and established publishers and you will see a thin space but have no idea from its spine, or absence of spine, what the book might be.
This is such a book. Kinkos white cover with a detailed drawing of a bird feather, courtesy of Alixandra Bamford, graces the front. Inside is a second cover, red, on the back is the publisher information and author bio. Inside is just the text ma'am; just the text. Jessica Smith's words, regrettably, deserve better than Kinkos quality paper. Hey, I have stories of our own press's humble beginnings. Ours intersected with an "off the books" Kinkos transaction that led to the termination of the entire night crew at a particular Philadelphia location. I am sure that this effort by Mr. Mclennan was above/ground(board) and the combination covers are both striking and original. Kudos, sir!
I appreciate the spacial quality of Ms. Smith's work. I wonder if she hesitates a significant
amount of time
between passages
since the spacing beckons one to do.
