Steps by Erik Muller (2011)

 Steps

Erik Muller

self published

Eugene, OR

(c) 2011

This might take a bit to set up and the payoff might not work but here goes : I think I have mentioned that part of the reason I write about chapbooks is that I also wear a publisher's hat (Plan B Press) and we have been publishing, mostly chapbooks, since 1999. 

Well, this year we published a book by an Eve Muller entitled A Guide to the Ruins. In the process I learned that Eve had a father who wrote poetry and also ran a few publishing operations in the Eugene, OR area. I was intrigued. Fireweed and Traprock Books were among the publications that he edited and brought out along with the Coos Writer Series. And apparently he self published some of his collections as well. Like this one. According to Eve his books are hard to come by so I was elated to find a signed copy of one of his books that his daughter admitted that she never read. 

I am familiar with a chapbooks with the same title, Steps, as that was the title of ruth weiss's first chapbook that I got a copy of long ago and then sold to a collector for a significant amount of money. ruth told me the story about how that chapbook came about. I am unable to have a conversation with Mr. Muller since he passed in 2021. 

Eve Muller is working with the University of Oregon to put together a collection of his work at the college. Special collections, anyone?

Hope they have a copy of this one in that collection. (Not that I am parting with this one anytime soon)