Goose Hill

Even more book arts

2012-01-24T07:30:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been a bit feverish in my antique book re-purposing. I love having projects to work on. Here are some of the antique book cover collages I've been building:

Old Silver Grizzle the Badger by Ernest Thompson Seton

I thought this title was just wonderful. And by wonderful, I mean hilarious.

Galahad: Enough of his Life to Explain his Reputation by John Erskine

Close-up of text passage used in Galahad collage

This is one of my favorite books of all time. And I loved the castle engraving on this battered hardcover copy that came through the library donations. This is my favorite collage so far.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Close-up of text passage used in Castle collage

And I'm not the only one who loves to use books for crafting. Apparently quite a few crafters have been using old books as materials and medium.

A couple of good related books I've been looking through recently:

The Repurposed Library by Lisa Occhipinti
Books Make a Home by Damian Thompson

Great ideas and photos. Both are definitely worth your time. In the latter title, there is a passage that caught my attention that I wanted to share here. It actually sounds a bit like something I said a few months ago:

Whether you'd place yourself at either extreme or somewhere in the middle, is there any point in investing in shelves and bookcases in the digital age? When a Kindle can easily hold some 1,500 titles, perhaps all our books are headed for landfill. It is true that publishers are facing the biggest upheaval to their industry since Gutenberg invented his press in 1439, but reports of the death of the book have been greatly exaggerated. Some 80,000 books were published in Britain alone last year. It is true that writers can self-publish online, cutting out the middle man and thereby boosting what they earn. But publishers are a key quality filter; they have expertise about what constitutes good writing and how to reach readers; their editorial, design and picture-research staff bring experience and add quality to the finished article. Hand-held devices are a boon to the traveler, no question, but traditional books have visual and tactile qualities that are irreplaceable. Indeed, the net effect of digital publishing may well be that 'real' books will become more expensive, more like the 'niche' products they were in the past; but the process may force us to value them more, to become more discriminating about their aesthetic qualities. As the philosopher Alain de Botton has argued: 'We should stand to swap a few of our swiftly disintegrating paperbacks for volumes that proclaim, through the weight and heft of their materials, the grace of their typography and the beauty of their illustrations, our desire for their contents to assume a permanent place in our hearts.

P.S.
Looking at this post now, I'm not quite satisfied with how the photos of the book cover collages turned out. They really are much better in person, but you can get the general idea of them from these pictures at least. Someday I must invest in a new digital camera. The one I have now is from 2006, I think. Far too outdated at this point.

Bring it, St. Valentine

2012-01-17T07:30:00.000-05:00

Anti-Valentine's Day card from JulieAnnArt on Etsy

I have never been one to celebrate Valentine's Day. Ever since the hoopla of grade school, it has become more a source of unwarranted alienation than a victory for romance. It's silly, really, so I usually try to let it pass unnoticed.

But I am trying to be a better Etsy shop owner, so I have updated my item titles and tags to reel in some possible Valentine's Day sales through keyword searching.

You lone writer-types can show your typewriter some love with a kitschy typewriter cozy from Thread Lock Press! Or you can continue to look down your bespectacled nose at those lovers with secret rendezvous in the library stacks with this Anti-Valentine's Day, Library Etiquette letterpressed broadside.

Special guest star

2012-01-11T08:51:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick note to say that today I am appearing as a guest-blogger on my friend Annie's Scribbling Glue. Have a look and check out her past posts on the joys of letter-writing!

There is no cure for bibliophilia

2012-01-10T07:30:00.000-05:00


The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire

The library gets so many wonderful book donations. And while most of them are intended for the semiannual Friends of the Library Used Book Sale, some of them have become just too deteriorated to sell and so they are sent to Creafill to be recycled. Of course, we library employees get to take a first look through these even before they are handed over to the Friends; and in this way, I have managed to snag a few (very old) battered books with broken, rotted spines but absolutely beautiful covers that are relatively intact. Newer books just aren't made with this sort of care and skill anymore. These hard covers will have fantastic illustrations engraved into the fabric covering the book board, the titles printed in fabulously decorative fonts. Like any good bibliophile, I couldn't bear to see these books thrown out or even recycled. These covers are ART.

The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

So when I come across a book that meets these requirements, one that has a cover that affects me in some way, I bring it home. I pull out my trusty exacto-knife and separate the beautiful cover from its malignant body. Then I search through my stores of vintage fabrics to find a good pairing with the newly liberated book cover. When I find the fabric I want, I cut the appropriate size of it and glue it to the back board of a picture frame as a sort of reverse matting. Then I center the book cover on this fabric covered board and glue it in place. Once I put the mounted cover behind the glass of the frame, it is a piece of art ready to be hung on my wall.

I love these guys.

Bigger things

2012-01-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

And still I am not satisfied. Here is a list of the bigger things I am wishing for in the near future. These will require a little more saving.

1.
A 6.5 x 10" chase for Captain. This is the bit that the set type is locked tightly into, which is then placed inside the press to be inked and printed. It's like a cast-iron picture frame for a composition in type.

2.

Rollers and roller trucks for (again) Captain. The rollers are, well, rollers that apply ink to the type for printing; and roller trucks anchor and guide the ink rollers over the ink plate and then the print-ready type.

3.
I still need a few sizes and fonts of type for, well, printing!

4.

Then a few cans of rubber-based ink (easier for cleaning than oil-based), in a small variety of colors.

5.
And a book press. For book binding.

With these few things, I will be print-ready. I think I may be able to acquire them all before the new year is through.

Little things

2012-01-05T11:02:00.002-05:00

Even though I got so many wonderful letterpress items for Christmas, there are still a few small things (as there always are) that I would love to treat myself to in the weeks to come.

1.
The newest issue of the Fairy Tale Review was just released this week. This is one of my favorite literary magazines. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of The Brown Issue.

2.
I bought a bunch of these T-shirts from Natalie Dee for Christmas presents this year. But there are still a couple fun ones that I would like to get for me.

Like this one -->

3.
And in the home improvement area, I'm slowly replacing all the bland off-white light switch plates in my house with funkier ones from Fondue. I love the vintage wallpaper designs that they scrounge up to decoupage.

4.
Having a large, hyperactive dog means the nice china will inevitably be broken. I have had a couple tea cups and saucers sacrificed this past year. But when I came across The Broken Plate Pendant Company a few days ago, it seemed like the perfect way to preserve these beautiful, yet broken ceramics.

5.
Right now my 2012 calendar is a freebie filler that I got in the mail from my alma mater. It's a nice enough calendar, but my standby for the past four years has been the Nuns Having Fun wall calendar. I don't think it will really feel like a new year until I get the 2012 edition on my bulletin board.

6.
This last one is a wish for a good bit of news. I am waiting, waiting, waiting for news that the Winter 2012 issue of Moon Milk Review will be coming soon, and with two of my poems inside. I wish I could play it cool, but I am so looking forward to it! And let's face it, I've never been a cool girl.

O Captain! My Captain!

2012-01-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

This has been the Christmas of the letterpress. My beautiful Chandler & Price Pilot (whom I have decided to name Captain, referencing Walt Whitman's poem) has been outfitted with many of the necessaries, and we are moving closer to shipshape. In the morning I unwrapped my new 18" guillotine paper trimmer:

Look at that beautiful blade.

Later in the afternoon, I received a mixed bag of letterpress goodies:

from left to right:

Heavy-duty gauge pins (guides the paper while printing)
Type gauge, or line gauge (for measuring type, spacing, etc.)
Curved, pointed tweezers (for precisely grabbing small pieces of type while editing set type)
Quoin key (for tightening/loosening quoin)
Quoin (locks type tightly in chase when ready for printing)
Composing stick (For setting type. I gave this one to myself actually. They're a bit harder to find these days.)
Ink knives (for applying ink to ink plate)
Not pictured: red pressboard (for padding underneath paper to get the best quality impression)

All of these smaller supplies (except for the composing stick) were found at American Printing Equipment. The composing stick I found secondhand at an Etsy vintage shop.

The finale of this day of gifts is the best Christmas present I have ever received. My brother Brett custom-built a BEAUTIFUL type cabinet and gave it to me on Christmas day. It has shelves enough to house eight small type drawers (for which I will soon buy type to fill), space enough at the base to store letterpress supplies like ink, pressboard, cleaning solutions, even my new 18" paper trimmer! It also provides a platform (or pedestal?) for my tabletop model press. Captain and I are both in love with this gorgeous piece of furniture.

I gave him general height and width requirements. Told him it needed to be sturdy enough to support at least 200lbs. resting on top of it. And gave him one drawer to use as reference. Then my brother designed and built this for me. It is incredible and one of a kind. I think this is going to be a future family heirloom.

Brown-paper packages tied up with strings

2011-12-19T16:17:00.000-05:00

These are a few of my favorite things.

Have yourself a bookish little Christmas

2011-12-10T16:22:00.001-05:00

I have come across a few neat alternative Christmas tree ideas in my web wanderings over the past week or two, but there was only one that really caught my interest. And let me add: I am not really one to decorate my house for the holidays. Growing up, it was great fun and I've always loved the cozy, warm ambiance it creates. But as an adult, I really don't have the energy or inclination to drag out a bunch of seasonal decorations every year, assemble it all, plug it in for a month, and then tear it all back down. All that for just me and the cats and the dog? I can hardly bring myself to sweep the floors once every couple months. But a Christmas tree made out of books? (or this one!) That's a project for me.

So, while working a slowish afternoon at the library, I scanned through the shelves of discarded and donated books, and grabbed all the green-covered ones I could find, in various sizes, plus a tiny one (color unimportant) for the tippy-top. I even managed to collect some green books with actual Christmas-ey titles. I decided to build a tree that was a combination/variation of the two shown in the previous links. After brushing glue on the outsides of the textblocks to keep the tree sturdy and together, I stacked the books in order of size, catty-cornering them to create that impression of layers of foliage. Then I shot hot glue between each book (I used a decorative box I had laying around as the trunk).

Then for the final touch, I took the tiny book I had snagged earlier and splayed open its pages until they created the triangle shape I wanted, and hot-glued it in place at the top of the tree. I also thought the title of the book was perfect for the treetop: The Little Book of Magic Tricks! I am quite satisfied with the final result and decided it would look perfect on top of my gorgeous card catalog (genuine vintage library artifact). I was right. Now I'm beginning to feel a bit more festive.

LibraryThing Early Reviewers: Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey & Peter F. Neumeyer

2011-12-07T10:45:00.001-05:00

As excited as I (always) am to receive free books through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, I am ecstatic when I am lucky enough to snag whatever is newest from Pomegranate Books (especially when those books are Edward Gorey written/illustrated). I was particularly happy to have won a copy of Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey & Peter F. Neumeyer.

This book offers a privileged glimpse into both the writing and illustrating process, and the personal relationship between two extremely witty men who hold each other in the highest esteem. I enjoyed reading about their collaborative work in creating the Donald books and learning how much each influenced the other's parts in the projects.

The juxtaposition of their whimsical ideas, words, and drawings with the humdrum realities of their everyday lives is captivating and comforting. I was glad to have the inclusion of facsimiles of a few of the wonderfully rambling letters and postcards, especially the fabulous envelopes that Gorey illustrated before mailing off to his friend. And the stoej-gnpf, that hybrid creature on the front cover that Gorey decided was part himself and part his friend, and became a secret symbol between them of their like-mindedness and collaborative magic.

But how does one review the personal correspondence between two friends, who just happen to be writers and artists? One doesn't. I have been merely eavesdropping, but the things I overheard were fascinating. I only wonder why they ever stopped. Thank you so much, Mr. Neumeyer, for sharing these letters with the rest of us.

P.S.
While reading this book, I was reminded of another book I read (and loved) about two years ago, Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I think I may have a new favorite book genre: collected correspondence (or whatever more eloquent title it may have).

P.P.S.
Letter-writing must be in the air! If you are also a fan of reading and writing letters (be they addressed to you or someone else!), you must have a look over at my friend Annie's blog Scribbling Glue. You'll quickly get back in the habit.

You can quote me on that

2011-11-20T21:20:00.001-05:00

I was one of three poets interviewed by The Coachella Review this fall for their blog. I got to talk about writing and reading; and well, what else is there to talk about?

You can read my interview here.

Also interviewed in this series were Peycho Kanev and Joanne Lowery.

Post script, or ask and you shall receive

2011-11-12T21:39:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned here that a certain picture looked like a postcard and one that I would be happy to find in my mailbox. Remember that? I do. Anyway, after writing that, I didn't think much of it. Went on with the everyday things. Then one day last week after finishing work and running errands, I come home to find this friendly thing waiting for me in my mailbox:

Sometimes the universe is listening. Sometimes I just have wonderful friends like Annie. She is also a bibliophile and crafter, and a general fan of writing and quiet moments to oneself, or with a friend and a cup of tea. Annie is hoping to start a quiet sort of revolution devoted to writing and sending actual letters and little bits of papery ephemera.

You can certainly count me in.

Forthcoming, part deux

2011-11-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

For Halloween this year, I got a second (and quite unexpected) acceptance letter. I had already resigned myself to being rejected again from this literary magazine, but the emails came in yesterday: my poems "Red Market" and "Women and Children First" have been selected for publication in the next issue of Moon Milk Review!

I was first drawn to Moon Milk Review last fall when I stumbled upon them in a lit mag search. When I learned that their namesake is taken from the writing of Italo Calvino (specifically, his short story "The Distance of the Moon" from Cosmicomics), I was in love. I first discovered Calvino during my junior year of college with The Castle of Crossed Destinies; and I was so enamored that he became one of three authors I studied and wrote about for my senior thesis. Even now, whenever I go to a bookstore, I scan the C section for his name. A magazine run by editors with reading tastes as snobby as mine, now that sounds like a place I want to be. So I submitted a couple poems then, but they weren't quite up to snuff. And I went on with my daily life, writing more poetry when I could find the time in between everything else.

So, then came time to start submitting again this fall and I thought I'd give it another go at MMR. I'd written some new poems over the past year that I thought were more along the lines of what the magazine was looking for: magical realism, surrealism, slipstream with a Calvino flavor. Don't misunderstand, I didn't write these poems to match a certain editor's preferences. But after another year of writing, I took a look back at the poems that came out of it and found that a few I had written might be a good match this time around.

I am more than honored that two of my poems have been chosen for this magazine. In the meantime, I will have a good read-through of their latest issue, also released yesterday. Happy poetry season!

I feel fabulous

2011-10-28T16:18:00.001-04:00

For my first time, I have to say that my experience with The Coachella Review has been all a girl could hope for. Not only did they accept two of my poems for publication, but their Poetry Editor was completely wonderful to work with, the suggested revisions were very, very minimal, and there was fast turnaround between both submission and response & acceptance and publication. And I even got a call the morning after.

Am I blushing?

A coach named Ella

2011-10-20T11:06:00.002-04:00

The Fall 2011 issue of The Coachella Review is up and at 'em! I particularly adore the cover photo by Katie Keller, which, I believe, features a coach named Ella? Perfect. Looks like a postcard I'd hope to find in my mailbox. My poems "Vespers" and "Studies in Still-Life" feel quite at home here. And I can't wait to read all of my fellow Fall-2011ers!

LibraryThing Early Reviewers: Paper Covers Rock & Triplicity

2011-10-13T21:52:00.001-04:00

Two poetry chapbooks in one from Indigo Ink Press: Paper Covers Rock, by Chella Courington and Triplicity: Poems in Threes, by Kristen McHenry.

The chapbook form is one I particularly love. There is a great romantic history behind them as the pamphlets and small booklets of ballads and legends sold by traveling chapmen. And there is so much artistic potential in their diminutive size, their general brevity. But this is the first time I've enc0untered a dual chapbook; and I'm not sure that it does the writers or the work any favors. My favorite attribute of the chapbook is the way it can be used to encapsulate a particular experience. Whereas poetry collections tend to span a greater range of subjects, a chapbook can focus on one of these and capture a single story in a dozen or a couple dozen poems. But with two manuscripts and two different poets vying for attention within the same binding, it feels a bit too crowded here.

But on to the poetry! Chella Courington's title poem "Paper Covers Rock" is probably my favorite from her side of the book. I love the way it plays with the idea of the children's game and that each short section of the five-part poem explores an obsession with the one item not mentioned in the title. Scissors are innocent as physical objects with their utilitarian purposes, but they become frightening when turned on the body. With each section we cut a bit deeper into the speaker's underlying emotional struggles. The image is explored from many angles and to great effect. I would like to see more like this.

I like the idea of grouping these poems into threes, but I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the result in Kristen McHenry's Triplicity: Poems in Threes. Some of the sections work well together. Maybe it's the titles of the sections that I find unsatisfying? I think they might work better as untitled sections, let the reader find the connecting thread for him/herself. I felt a little too guided along, I think, and it left me feeling cluttered. Aside from form, there were many captivating images and phrases to be found here. In "Letter to My Second Sister," the addressed sister is described: "with eyes glass-green and deep as trees," an image that recurs two poems later in "Drowning Girls." But it was a repetition I found soothing and beautiful. In fact, this was probably my favorite section of McHenry's collection, the last but not the least.

Forthcoming

2011-09-28T14:05:00.001-04:00

No longer am I just on the cusp of publication. In the past, I've shared with you my favorite rejection letters. Now I get to share my first acceptance letter!

So there it is! My two poems "Vespers" and "Studies in Still-Life" will be forthcoming in the Fall 2011 issue of The Coachella Review. It all starts here, people. I am forthcoming.

She's here! She's here!

2011-09-26T17:50:00.000-04:00

This very afternoon my beautiful Chandler & Price tabletop printing press was delivered! Mike (who looks coincidentally similar to Santa Claus) and his two Chinese exchange students (who sadly do not resemble elves) pulled up in a pickup, unloaded her from the bed and settled her in her spot. Here she is:

Eventually she will perch on top of a type cabinet in this very floorspace. So next, I must commission my contractor stepfather or some other carpenter of my acquaintance to custom build a cabinet that will both store type cases (full of lead type!) and hold up this (quite heavy) cast-iron printing press.

P.S.
I am still deciding on a name for my press. I would like to have her keep the initials C.P., which has made deciding on a name more difficult. Any suggestions? I'm just waiting for inspiration at this point.

P.P.S.
If you hadn't noticed, this blog of mine has had a little makeover. I felt it was time to update. I hope everyone likes the new look!

Nesting

2011-09-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

While I scrimp and save and dream about my printing press, whose due date is somewhere in the vicinity of October, I have begun preparing a cozy space for it in my living room: a narrow, just-the-right-size area between the tall bookcase and the kitchen doorway. Today, I picked up a letterpress print that I got professionally framed (as both the occasion and the gorgeous print, I felt, called for this little indulgence).

My "Rules of the Press" art (handset and handprinted by the lovely Jen Malat and Marian Robbins in the Print Shop of the Rose O'Neill Literary House in 2008) is now hung on the wall directly over where the press will be.

Jen and Marian's Rules of the Press

1. Don't die.

2. Don't lose any limbs. Addendum: Avoid paper cutter.

3. Wheel before ink.

4. Shift, don't reach.

5. Have fun!

It's all very good advice, really. Also there are cowboys and horses. What's not to love, right?

Librarian's got a brand new bag (well, sort of)

2011-08-18T13:29:00.007-04:00

Not really new, per se. Repurposed. One of my favorite things!

We were going to throw out this old mailbox-library bag because the protective plastic around the address label area was extremely tattered. The label would not stay in place. But on my way to garbage bin, I had an idea. So I took it home with me instead. After washing all of the gunk away (that took a bit of scrubbing), I added a fabric lining to the inside, attached a pocket to the front where the fabric was discolored due to the address label, and then some straps, repurposed from old belts. I even added a zipper pull to match the lining and the pocket.

I brought it back in to the library to show off this transformation to my library coworkers. And I ended up with commissions for more! If anyone else wants in on this exclusive new library fashion accessory, let me know. I'm here teaching old bags new tricks.

Still on the cusp

2011-07-27T12:03:00.011-04:00

I just received another rejection letter from Fairy Tale Review. I was really hoping that this time would be it, but alas. Again I received the nicest, personalized response, which I am taking as encouragement. I try not to let these things get me down. If any writer gives in to that feeling, there really is no hope of getting anywhere (think the Swamps of Sadness in The Neverending Story--oh, poor Artax). Anyway, I know I'm getting somewhere, it just might take me a bit longer.

On a related note, Alissa Nutting, the guest editor of Fairy Tale Review's The Grey Issue, who writes such fantastic rejection letters, has a book of her own. She's a very talented writer of prose and I highly recommend her short story collection, Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls. I keep my copy on my fairy tale shelf.

Of festival friends and small press love

2011-07-22T14:42:00.014-04:00

During my stint as secretary of the Chestertown Book Festival (2009-2010), I got to help bring together some great writers, illustrators, reviewers, and general book enthusiasts. Last year, in particular, we had Washington Post Book World reviewer Michael Dirda as our opening act, and among the other festival events he perused, was a presentation by my friends Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson of Idiots'Books. After Robbi and Matthew finished their event, Michael introduced himself and there was a meeting of like book-minds.

(photo courtesy Andrea B. Neiman)

Recently, Michael Dirda wrote a Reading Room column praising the ideas and books coming out of small presses. And who was his first example of excellence in the small press world? The Idiots! I, myself, am a huge fan of the small press (as I'm sure you know). In May, I posted about, what I hope will be, the potentially mutually-beneficial relationship between small press publishing and the rise of the e-reader (or mutually-exclusive, at the least). Are Michael Dirda's tastes a sign of a movement bolstering the small press publishing world? I can only hope.

If you are interested in finding all these wonderful sorts of books, but are unsure where to start (one of the limits inherent in this area of publishing is that they aren't available wherever books are sold), a great market is Small Press Distribution: a nonprofit organization dedicated to getting small press books into the hands of readers. Of course, not every small press book is listed here (some presses have their own independently managed sites, like Idiots'Books); but it is a great place to get acquainted with the sorts of things this world has to offer.

Meet the press

2011-07-18T20:52:00.002-04:00

Despite my claims of poverty, I soon will be acquiring a printing press of my very own. A Chandler & Price, no less. Master printer, teacher, and friend, Mike Kaylor, found a tabletop C&P that needs some minor cleaning and repair that he is willing to sell to me at a modest price. Think of this model as the laptop equivalent to the desktop computer--although I would never attempt to set this cast-iron beast on my lap:

Here's her make and model:

She even comes with a (very) brief introduction to the history of the printing press. Although Mike's stories are much better:

So, truth: No, I didn't win the lottery. Yes, I am still poor. But the possibility of realistically owning my own press motivated me to be even thriftier and put a stringent savings plan into practice for the few months it will take me to earn this beauty. What happened was, word came down, the way it does, that Mike had a press he wanted to sell and so I said, "Wait! Wait! How much? I want it!" And Bob's your uncle.

So... by October, I should have the money to purchase her. Then I'll have to save a bit for the things I'll need to outfit her. She should have a bit less sawdust on her then, as well.

LibraryThing Early Reviewers: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

2011-07-18T17:08:00.004-04:00

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs

An absorbing adventure that begins in the realistic and gradually builds into a convincing carnivalesque story of time travel and an island of misfit kids. The black and white photos included in the text of the novel perform their duty well, revealing the curious abilities of the characters while amplifying the atmosphere of mystery and strangeness. I was completely captivated by this dark fairytale of WWII orphans in the Welsh bogland, trapped in time just like their photo counterparts.

I gave it 5 stars.

A table fit for a printer

2011-06-27T21:25:00.032-04:00

One serendipitous day, I found a teetering stack of letterpress job cases in front of one of the local antique and furniture shops at unbelievably low prices. Most of the time, these trays go for anywhere between 30 and 50 dollars, depending on size and condition. But I snagged some large Hamilton-brand California job cases for 18 bucks. Quite a find!

My friend Emma helped me turn one of these into a snazzy, shadow box-style coffee table. We went hardware shopping at Lowe's for some prefab table legs, wood stain, heavy-duty top plates (to brace the legs on the bottom of the job case), a sheet of plexiglass, and bumpers. I also borrowed a power drill and the accompanying bits from my stepfather.

First, I stained the table legs to get them close to the color of the job case. I let them dry completely overnight.

Second, with Emma's assistance, I drilled holes into the bottom of the job case so we could screw the top plates into place. This was probably the most involved part of the process. (Note the gorgeous ring I recently bought for myself from Compass Rose Design--it's made with an antique typewriter key!)

Third, we screwed the top plates into the job case.

Then, we screwed the table legs into the top plates.

And we have a table!

Now just for the finishing touches. We add bumpers to the corners and edges of the plexiglass sheet to keep it from sliding around too much (a necessary precaution when one has a large maniac dog and two nosy cats). Finally, we fill the slots with bits and bobs, then slide the glass into place.

And to think I used to hate when my dad would drag me and my brother to Lowe's for, what felt like, hours. Oh how things change when we grow up. I also like pickles, mustard, and onions now (and sometimes all at once).

Hildegard in the wild (because you asked)

2011-06-08T10:53:00.007-04:00

My friend Angela requested some outdoors pictures of my beloved typewriter. So Hildegard and I ventured out into the backyard and took some glamor shots.

And her close-up:

As you wish, Angela.

Me and Hildegard

2011-05-31T17:36:00.017-04:00

Inspired by my past post about the writers-and-their-typewriters photo gallery, my friend Annie and I thought it would be a fun idea to shoot me and Hildegard. So yesterday, Annie came over with her camera.

And then Kevin wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

He decided it wasn't really for him. Silly boy.

I keep playing my typewriter music anyway.

E-Readers and Book Arts: A Peaceful Coexistence

2011-05-06T10:14:00.026-04:00

Being a library assistant and a general bibliophile, I have heard many lamentations concerning the rise of electronic reading devices: Kindles, Nooks, etc. (I myself own a Pandigital Novel). I don't believe that the development of new technology necessarily means the extinction of the older way. In some cases this has been true, of course: cassette tapes replaced by compact discs replaced by MP3s, etc. But books? This is a technology that has been around long enough to be removed from fad status, hasn't it? Hundreds of years, people. Medieval monks were making books!

Personally, my own lamentation has been the steady decrease in the quality of bookbinding in this last century. Working in a library, I see the newest James Patterson hardback come back after only two or three uses, and the binding is already falling apart. No, this is not because of patron abuse. I have seen it happen over and over. Sadly, this is the result of a cheap glue job and not one sewn page. Not that the quality of the content merits much more than this cheap mass-market production, mind you. But that's the beauty in this rise of the e-reader. My own hopeful prediction is that these popular books of convenience that are cheaply made and sold by the thousands (sometimes millions) will end up making the migration to mostly digital formatting--digital books being even more cost-effective than their poorly constructed physical counterparts.

This move, in my mind, will leave more room for the book arts market. Small presses dedicated to producing carefully crafted books that appeal to a more marginal literary audience (We're not snobs. Well... maybe a little...). Book artists and bookbinders, in general, recognize the importance of archival-quality materials: acid-free paper, acid-free adhesives, waxed linen thread. They are making objects that are meant to last longer than we are. At small and fine presses, books are made with the care of pieces of art because that is what they are. Not a meer means of accessing information. If that is what you are looking for, an e-reader device probably would be the most efficient tool. But books, at their most essential, are art objects and should not be made and treated as consumables.

I think it very probable that, in the long-term view of things, e-readers and well-made books can thrive side-by-side because essentially they serve different types of reading audiences. If it leads to greater care and attention in the making of books, I'm all for it.

Etsy Treasury Love

2011-04-28T10:35:00.007-04:00

It's not very easy to get noticed on Etsy. It's hawking your wares, unique and valuable as you might think them to be, in the biggest street fair in the world. How do people find you among everyone else? How do you find them? I've been on Etsy for nearly six months now and I haven't really got much to show for it yet. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

But out of the blue yesterday, two different Etsy sellers picked my broadsides to feature in their hand-picked treasuries. It's quite an honor to be singled out like that by a fellow artist/crafter. It's a great feeling to be recognized.

My "Poetic License" broadside was featured in SageLetterpress's "Letterpress Love" treasury:

And then, a few hours later, my "Library Etiquette" broadside was featured in LindsayDud's Pretty Cool Stuff Emporium's "Bookworm" treasury:

So check out these lovely treasuries! One of the keys to getting noticed, I think, is noticing others.

LibraryThing Early Reviewers: Cloud of Ink, by L.S. Klatt

2011-04-18T22:03:00.005-04:00

Klatt makes many whimsical connections in his verse, giving this collection an atmosphere of playfulness. His poem “Liquefaction” is a particularly fun and memorable example. Sometimes these bundles of lighthearted images allude to something deeper or darker, but in many of these poems, they are just what they seem: a lover of words at play, a gathering of “inklings.”

L.S. Klatt's Cloud of Ink won the 2011 Iowa Poetry Prize.

I give it 3 stars. Also, Happy National Poetry Month, everyone!

The machinery of words

2011-04-05T10:07:00.004-04:00

You must be aware, at this point, that I have an ongoing love affair with words and the physical making of them. I love my Remington Rand manual typewriter with all its clicking and clacking as I write. A friend directed me to this wonderful slideshow of "Famous Authors and their Typewriters" and now I must share it with you as well. Enjoy!

New product photos!

2011-02-16T17:36:00.004-05:00

Monday I re-photographed all of my Etsy items to date. These photos are much more flattering! And more dynamic, I think, as well. Take a look.

One old pair of jeans, one ugly neck tie, and one shoelace

2011-02-10T10:10:00.015-05:00

Not having a press of my own, makes it quite difficult to maintain my title as a Lady of Letterpress. I'm trying to save up for a smallish press, but life in the meantime gets expensive and exhausting; and it looks like saving the couple thousand I'll need for a press and all the start-up materials might take quite a while. So instead, I've been trying to occupy myself with letterpress-related projects that I can make at home.

Most recently, I've been making printer's aprons using one old pair of jeans, one ugly neck tie, and one shoelace. I have a habit of saving my old jeans for salvage after they've developed holes in unseemly places (no pun intended!). And now these battered has-beens have a new purpose!

I used the legs for the body of the apron: cut them off the abdomen, then sliced each leg open (along one of the seams) and sewed both legs together to make a four-paneled rectangle. For the torso area of the apron, I grabbed each of the upper two outer corners of this new jean-rectangle and folded them back a few degrees, then sewed them in place.

The neck tie I used for... the neck tie! Albeit a different breed of neck tie. This repurposed tie now wraps around the neck like a halter-top strap and attaches at adjustable lengths via a vintage button at the collar. The tail of the tie that was left after this was completed I used to add a touch of fashion. It is now an empire-waist-height belt sewn into the apron.

The shoelace was cut in half and sewed in on either side of the apron back as the waist/hip tie. I also took other pieces of the jeans to add printerly pockets to the front of the apron. I stole the butt pockets from what was left of the original pair of jeans and sewed them at staggered heights to the front of the apron to hold things such as tweezers, a composing stick, pieces of type, etc. Then I took one of the belt loops and attached it horizontally above the lower of the two now-front pockets. This can be helpful for securing a line gauge in the pocket or holding a quoin key.

I must say, I am quite happy with the final results. So far I have made two: one for myself, one for someone else. I plan to make more and sell them on my Etsy shop, should anyone actually want one for themselves.

New and shiny things

2011-01-15T10:40:00.006-05:00

Lately, I've been working on some ways to spiff up my Etsy shop (launched in October of last year). Most of my listings will expire next month and before I renew them, I plan to take all new and better pictures of my broadsides, book, and typewriter cozies. But yesterday, I created a new and better banner for Thread Lock Press, of which I feel a bit proud:

The photos in this banner were all taken by me of course. I was inspired to rework it after taking a good long look at the antique door knobs in my new rental house. They were an absolute perfect fit! I just strung some embroidery thread through the (fairly wide) keyhole and started experimenting with angles of perception, focusing on the keyhole and thread. My favorites ended up being the shots looking up at the door knob. They reminded me of Alice Kingsley after she's drunk the shrinking potion upon falling down the rabbit hole.

LibraryThing Early Reviewers: Reading Women, by Stephanie Staal

2011-01-05T13:42:00.002-05:00

Such a palpable story of the struggle for balance between theory and reality, between what we say and what we do. In reading this book, it became very clear to me how much identity--especially a woman's identity--is a balancing act. No matter what stage of life we inhabit, it seems our identity is always in flux, on the verge of becoming something else.

This is also a story of perspective. Of how experience changes not only the way we see ourselves, but how we see everything else in relation to ourselves. Of taking a step back from our own lives and changing that perspective. But the ultimate moral to this story is one any reading woman can appreciate: when feeling lost, turn to the right books and you'll find your way back.

Poetry for Christmas

2010-12-28T10:14:00.012-05:00

1. The Forest of Sure Things, by Megan Snyder-Camp

2. Effacement, by Elizabeth Arnold

3. Poor-Mouth Jubilee, by Michael Chitwood

4. Pink and Hot Pink Habitat, by Natalie Lyalin

5. I Was the Jukebox, by Sandra Beasley

6. Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore, by Erika Meitner

Somewhere in San Francisco...

2010-11-18T16:34:00.004-05:00

... there are three copies each of two of my letterpress broadsides. I submitted them to a really neat project pointed out to me by my printer-poet friend Emma Sovich: Papergirl San Francisco. People from all over the world donated artwork and prints to be rolled up and delivered by bike to strangers on the sidewalks of San Francisco. What an exciting and fun idea! Here's a gallery of all the submitted works and a list of participating artists. I only wish I could've been in San Francisco on October 3. Keep an eye out next fall for their call for submissions, fellow letterpressers!

Teaching poetry and folktales

2010-10-29T09:43:00.004-04:00

An interesting opportunity has come my way recently. Although I've never, ever, ever wanted to be a teacher (seems like one of the hardest jobs in the world to me), I have accepted the invitation to be a guest teacher (of sorts) for the Extended Day program with Millington Elementary School. I was asked to talk about two of my great loves--poetry and folk/fairy tales--for an hour two Monday afternoons in a row. How could I say no? I'm actually pretty excited about it. I had a hard time, at first, trying to develop a lesson plan. But once I decided on the poem I would talk to them about, it all sort of fell into place. "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" by Roald Dahl is such a fun and surprising retelling of the traditional tale and I'm sure the 8-10 year olds that I'll be working with will not be too shocked and appalled by the pistol in Little Red's knickers. Maybe they will understand how much fun both poetry and folktales can be--that, of course, is my aim. So here's my basic lesson plan:

1. What do you think poetry is? What makes a poem a poem?

Terms: line, stanza, rhyme, meter.
Description: metaphors, similes.

2. Poetry is just another form of storytelling.

Similar to folktales because both were meant to be read aloud.
In poetry, the sounds of the words are just as important as the story itself (the music of words).

3. Pass out copies of "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" by Roald Dahl.

Read it aloud to class once.
Then, read it aloud again with the class. Go around the room, each student reading 2 lines at a time.

Creative Writing Assignment
Pick a folktale that you know really well (you can pick "Little Red Riding Hood" if you want) and tell it again as a poem. Feel free to change the traditional story as you retell it. The poem does not have to rhyme, but it certainly can if you want.

Open for business!

2010-10-23T10:01:00.005-04:00

I don't know if anyone's noticed a new widget down the right margin of this blog... I finally set up my shop on Etsy! I've been thinking about it for about two years now and I finally did it. I'm going under the name of Thread Lock Press, the press name for my book collaborations with Emily Kalwaitis. But I've also included a couple older broadsides I made in college that I think fit in well. The name also allows for a little creativity elsewhere too. I'm hoping to list some of my sewing projects (preferably those with a printing, writing, or book-type theme) there as well. I'm calling these "collaborations in printing and sewing," a term that lends itself easily to loose definitions. It could mean anything from a handmade book to a hand-sewn typewriter cover (a current project in the making). So check it out! Maybe you'll even find something you'll like enough to buy?

And I'm such a dork, I even made myself business cards:

LibraryThing Early Reviewers

2010-10-19T11:24:00.004-04:00

Oh, LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. You made my day when you selected me to win a free copy of a new Edward Gorey book--and one illustrating fairy tales, to boot. Here's what I thought of it:

"Very well done indeed! James Donnelly's witty retellings of these three traditional fairy tales were well able to keep up with Edward Gorey's incomparable illustrations. Both Donnelly's and Gorey's storytelling capture the playful element of the macabre in these classic tales, a grim sort of whimsy, despite the inevitable happy endings. Putting the grim back in Grimm."

Love,
Lindsay

Epigraphs and illuminated chapbooks

2010-10-15T09:58:00.009-04:00

I am finally out from under the Chestertown Book Festival and am attempting to focus again on my new illuminated chapbook project with Emily Kalwaitis. I don't believe I've talked about my illuminated chapbook concept here before. It's not really anything extremely new and innovative, just a new way of looking at an art form, I guess. My illuminated chapbook is really just a short collection of illustrated poetry. Sleight would have been one. I am designing Pastoral in full consciousness of this idea. It may seem rather simple and insignificant--a short book of illustrated poetry--but I like to think of it as similar to the ancient art of illuminated manuscripts. I feel that the poetry and paintings have a way of working together when placed side by side, that makes them more than what they can be alone. Words and art together are a powerful combination, I think. Illuminating.

And while reading the new book by Fairy Tale Review founder and editor Kate Bernheimer, Horse, Flower, Bird, I happened upon a sentence of hers that would make a beautiful epitaph for Pastoral, in her story "A Cageling Tale:"

"Lying in bed, watching the pale bird toss itself through the pastel scene, the girl felt in the best way--pastoral, nearly."

I think Kate knows what we're talking about. Emily's working on the art for Pastoral now. I can't wait to see what she sees.

Words I want to use in a poem

2010-10-01T08:52:00.003-04:00

hatpin
iron
stray
bellwether
stitch
confinement (the 19th-century noun referring to a woman's seclusion during her pregnancy)

Getting back on track

2010-09-24T10:36:00.004-04:00

For the last month and a half, life seems to have taken over and poetry neglected. Sad times. But there have been books--lots and lots and lots of books. Although I have been shamefully absent from my personal blog, I have been frequently updating my professional blog for the Chestertown Book Festival (I don't mean professional in that I actually get paid, but in that it is a part of my job as Secretary to the Festival Committee). The second annual Chestertown Book Festival is almost here and we have been working our bibliophile-butts off to get everything together--but it should be wonderful! So, remember: October 8 & 9, Downtown Chestertown. Be there!

In other news, I have been writing a little (as in one poem completed in the last month) and I am trying to get back in the swing of that submitting-thing. I have sent this one to Moon Milk Review, a great (mostly online) literary magazine with a focus on magic realism in the vein of Italo Calvino. So cool! I should hear back from them within a month's time (so they say) and if they don't want my little poem, I plan to send it along to another great literary magazine I've recently discovered called A cappella Zoo, also dedicated to literature of magic realism and slipstream.

One really interesting thing I have discovered looking around their submissions pages is that both of these magazines use a submissions manager called Submishmash to handle their incoming slush piles. Not only does this service have a fun name, they're free for any publisher of literature and art! A great service to keep in mind should I ever decide I want to start up a literary magazine of my own... although I don't see that happening any time soon.

Also, I now have a second cat! A friendly Siamese-mix stray with blue eyes whom I have named Kevin. Pictures soon.

How the book alters the poetry

2010-08-14T11:11:00.003-04:00

I read a wonderful interview yesterday that was posted on the Poetry Foundation's website. Two fellow poets and book arts enthusiasts caught the attention of two graduate students (and the Poetry Foundation) when they visited Chapman University in Orange, CA. The resulting interview was illuminating and, for a poet-printer-bookbinder like myself, enormously encouraging. I feel like I was a part of a movement without even realizing it. Here's an excerpt:

"[Nancy Kuhl] I do think it is clear that there is a strong and growing interest in alternatives to commercial publishing in poetry communities. That this interest is often coincident with an interest in broader book arts has resulted in a vast and growing body of compelling and often beautiful book works exploring the literary and aesthetic implications of different publishing models and the relationships between poetry and more visual and tactile art forms. And the notion that 'form is content' is evident everywhere in this work, as poets and bookmakers create book works and textual objects in which the text is inextricable from its medium."

A Lady of Letterpress

2010-08-03T10:05:00.004-04:00

This week my friend Emma and I were selected for the member spotlight on Ladies of Letterpress! We were interviewed via email about our letterpress origins and what our press does. Sometimes it is fun to be in the spotlight.

A new project for Thread Lock Press

2010-07-22T09:56:00.015-04:00

So lately, I've been rather restless: anxious to be working on something with no ideas for creative outlet. I've also been wondering what will be next for Thread Lock Press. With one book under our belt, we've established our existence (to ourselves, at the very least). But to be a true small press, we need to make more than just one book. Once we've made a second book, we'll have established more of a presence--creating a pattern that shows our style and vision.

That's where I've begun funneling my creative energy the last day or two, and I think I've come up with a new project for Thread Lock Press: an illustrated chapbook of nine poems to be called Pastoral. It will be broken into three sections of three poems, each section ending with a triptych. This book will be a hardcover edition with illustrations that are a bit more integrated than our last book. I hope to have Emily incorporate paintings onto the same pages as the text. It will be another letterpress printing endeavor with the paintings printed digitally.

Here is the title poem (and first in the book):

Pastoral

The sky peppered with blackbirds
like stars of antimatter,
nooks where the night got stuck:

they are signs of a storm coming
like the old-wives' cows
sleeping in fields
with the lights still on.

The rural apocalypse
is a quiet one.

I'm happy to have another single word title--that may be a TLP theme emerging--and I've always liked the word "pastoral." It is first of all a general adjective for describing something as indicative of rural, countryside living. But it also has specific connotations as a noun in reference to poetry: "a poem, play, or the like, dealing with the life of shepherds, commonly in a conventional or artificial manner, or with simple rural life generally; a bucolic." Of course, I would never want to write something considered common, conventional, artificial or bucolic. But I think the poems in this chapbook examine strangenesses of pastoral life, sometimes grotesque, sometimes beautiful, but always with specificity.

Further Adventures in Bibliophilia

2010-06-23T10:31:00.011-04:00

I'd seen these altered book purses many times on Etsy and looked on with envy. I probably would have bought one already except that they are so expensive and I could tell by looking at them that if I tried hard enough, I could make one myself (for a lot less expense). So while working on Saturday, I took a look through the piles of used book donations for the library's semiannual book sale until I found a hardcover book of suitable size and decoration. So many newer hardcover books are absolutely plain beneath their dust jackets--so it wasn't so easy to find one with a little bit of flair (even an embossed title!) on the actual hard cover. Just one of many things that disappoint me in modern-day book manufacturing. But eventually I turned up this older Webster's Unified Dictionary and Encyclopedia and its raised viny patterning on both the cover and the spine and the colorfully embossed title seemed a perfect candidate for an altered book purse (especially since I felt much less guilty gutting a dictionary than I would a novel).

Next, I found some inexpensive fabric to match (for the lining and sides) at our local flea market. All the rest of the materials, I already had at home: Sobo fabric & craft glue, needle, thread, ribbon, and a sharp exacto-knife. Then I set to work. The only thing that dissatisfied me in the end result was my inability to get the straps to match the rest of the purse well enough. I braided 2 parts brown and one part green fabric trim to make them and, functionally, they are just fine, but, aesthetically, the shades of the colors aren't exactly ideal. Oh well, there's always next time.

Also, while gathering materials Saturday, I did a bit of research on this literary fashion accessory to have a better idea of how exactly to go about making it. I found that the idea for the altered book purse seems to have originated with a young woman named Caitlin Phillips of Rebound Designs (who runs her business through her Etsy shop). She was also interviewed this past April on NPR's "All Things Considered."

Small Town News

2010-06-08T17:43:00.005-04:00

Somehow my Sleight book project with my friend Emily was scooped by our local online newspaper: The Chestertown Spy. So exciting! I think the story turned out well, so anyone who actually reads this blog should take a look.

If at first you don't succeed: submit, submit, submit again

2010-06-02T11:11:00.003-04:00

I have not given up on eventual publication in my beloved Fairy Tale Review. I have been positively glowing since the last lovely rejection letter I received from them. Their reading period for the upcoming The Brown Issue is now open and I have just polished up three new poems to send in. So, today I have submitted them--"Dark and Stormy Night" (written while reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door), "Foxwife" (a parody of Anne Sexton's poem "Housewife") and "Into the Woods" (heavily influenced by strong doses of Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales)--and all that is left for me to do is wait.

Nerds just have more fun

2010-04-28T10:37:00.003-04:00

This Sunday, the batch of dandelion wine that Emily and I started 2 weeks ago had finally finished fermenting. So to finish it up, we had to strain all the chunky fermenting bits out (raisins, lemon and orange slices) and then let it settle a bit and then strain it even further to separate as much of the cloudy yeast-silt from the golden liquid as possible. Finally, we bottled and sealed our herbal moonshine--but not without having a celebratory test sip of our golden wine. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did not hate it. It is very, very sweet and definitely potent--more of a dessert wine, I guess. And just a few sips will do ya'.

P.S. I've decided to name my beloved typewriter Hildegard, after the sassy Medieval saint of Bingen, Germany who was part composer, part herbalist, part early-feminist, and known to have said: "Woman may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman." That was one cool lady.

Snug as a bug in a rug

2010-04-21T10:14:00.005-04:00

This weekend's crafty project was to make a cozy cover for my beloved typewriter. You might be surprised to discover that fashionable typewriter covers aren't easy to find for sale and the ones I have found are mostly opaque white plastic. Yuck. Anyway, it's more fun to make things yourself sometimes.

My friend Emma, web-searcher extraordinaire, found an example online of what I was aiming to make. This gave me a bit more confidence, especially seeing as how I didn't have a pattern to use and I had never attempted any three-dimensional sewing project before. So after shopping for fun fabrics--a medium blue denim and a pretty illustrated patterned cotton--I set straight to work: measuring up my typewriter and cutting corresponding sections of fabric. I'm quite happy with the end product. But now I think my typewriter is deserving of a name. Any ideas?

Weeding by moonshine

2010-04-14T10:28:00.013-04:00

It certainly is dandelion season. And I recently stumbled across a fun-looking recipe for dandelion wine that I thought I could actually manage. I love these sorts of experiments! Making fantastic new things from something we already have and have prematurely designated as useless. The inspiration for the dandelion recipe search actually came from a poem fragment I had been developing on my typewriter. It involved a character who had gathered a lot of dandelion blossoms, but then I couldn't figure out what the hell she was going to do with them:

Rabbit (version 2)

She fetches a few shaggy dandelions
then off with their heads--
a collection of sallow plumes,
skeletal stems tossed back to the yard.

Blooms gather in her apron like
buttons, blunt and beggarly.

Common and curious as coins.

So, when Emily came over for tea on Sunday, we collected a quart of dandelions from the yard on Goose Hill--blossoms only, there is no need of bitter greenery and roots in this wine recipe. I've always been an exemplary harvester (just not so good at the growing bit), but that works out well for this project, seeing as dandelions need absolutely no encouragement to make a bright nuisance of themselves.

Once we had washed the ants out of the petals and snipped off any stems still hanging on, we put the dandelion heads into the biggest vat of a cooking pot I own with a gallon of water and waited for it to boil. You may not be surprised to learn that it takes quite a while for a gallon of water to come to a boil. Then, we had to let the flowers steep themselves for half an hour. The end result of this was a dark brown-green liquid. It actually looked a bit like river water and the boiled yellow blooms like anemones. After straining the flowers from our boiled nectar, we had to wait once again, for the concoction to cool. In the meantime, we mixed the rest of the fermentable additives together: 3 lbs. of sugar(!), 1 lb. of seedless raisins, 1 orange (cut up), 1 lemon (cut up), and 1 yeast cake (an antiquated measurement that I found equates to 2-1/4 tsp. of active dry yeast) in 1/2 c. tepid water.

Once all ingredients had been combined, here was the result:

The raisins all sunk to the bottom. But the rest of it looks a bit like some exotic cider. So now for more waiting...

It'll take two full weeks of fermentation (with the mixture being stirred each day) before the wine is ready for bottling and/or tasting. It looks and smells pretty good each time I remove the lid to give it a good stir. I really hope it's not disgusting.

National Poetry Month

2010-04-07T16:40:00.005-04:00

Last April, I was surprised to find myself at a loss as to who my favorite poet was (is?). Over the past year, I believe, I've finally come to a conclusion. Although there are many poets who I adore fiercely (Anne Sexton, J. Allyn Rosser, Louise Erdrich, Sarah Lindsay, Sarah Hannah, Louise Glück, etcetera etcetera), the one I love above all is Elizabeth Bishop. I can't say exactly why. There are so many things about her life and her work and her person that I admire. But as a poet, she is vivid in her description and images, yet always a bit subdued in tone; simple, but a bit complicated beneath the skin; precise and not always beautiful. This last might be her finest poetic attribute, in my opinion, that she focuses on things that aren't necessarily pretty and she doesn't romanticize them until they become so (in the traditional sense of beauty, that is). A celebration of plainness. My two favorite poems of hers are actually very similar to each other: "The Fish" and "At the Fishhouses." For anyone interested in Elizabeth Bishop's life and person, I would ecstatically recommend the new book Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Read it on her lips, as it were.

Process and Prosody

2010-03-23T13:35:00.012-04:00

One of the questions most often asked of writers is: What is your writing process? By this general question, all of the following are really implied:

1. What time of day do you like to write?
2. What days of the week?
3. Where do you like to write?
4. What writing implements do you use?
5. Do you have any strange rituals or habits to stimulate your writing practice?
6. Etc.

Even though I've really been writing poetry since I was a child, I never had a writing process. Even when I was taking writing workshops in college, my process consisted of just hoping something would "come to me" before the deadline. Whenever I sat down on the bed or the couch with the intention of writing, I would rarely succeed unless I already had the seed of something with which to start.

Now, left to my own devices as an adult, I have no more excuses for this sort of laziness. So I've been trying out different practices with the hope of their turning into process. Finally, I think I've hit upon something and I owe it to a typewriter. With my previously stated goal of writing one poem a week even if it's crappy, I began by, throughout the week, making a list of individual words that I've collected from books or articles I happen to read or movies I happen to watch that have caught my attention as a word I'd like to incorporate in a poem. I've always been a collector of words. They need not be anything exotic; it's really only a matter of letter sounds and connotations of meaning that appeal to me in the moment. My previous blogpost is an example of one such list. Then, in the late evening after I've had my dinner, I sit down at my kitchen table with my list of words and my lovely manual Remington typewriter with the assignment to free-write. I also keep a few books of poetry handy should I require extra help. The past couple weeks I have had Louise Glück's The Wild Iris, Sarah Hannah's Inflorescence, and Ashley McWaters' Whitework to help me generate poetic thought.

The wonderful thing is: this process is working! Even if I'm not satisfied with the results every time, I am still writing something every time. The typewriter is a very stimulating instrument for me. For some reason, I feel less inhibited when writing with it. The empty Word document on my computer screen is just too much blank space. Writing in my notebook feels too permanent a thing--with the pages already bound in the book, I feel more pressure to not make any mistakes. When using the typewriter, I feel like I'm just jotting down ideas on a worksheet or piece of scrap paper (that can be thrown away or burned if too embarrassing or incriminating), so I find myself able to type my first poetic thoughts even if they aren't brilliant. They may develop into something closer to brilliance. With the typewriter, I feel the ability to essay poetically, in that wonderful verb form of the word.

Words I want to use in a poem

2010-03-17T16:56:00.001-04:00

primavera
worms
cut
dirt
flush
thunder
trees

Rejection never felt so good

2010-02-24T13:55:00.004-05:00

When I decided I wanted to pursue a poetry career in my non-working hours, I knew rejection was part of the territory. It's just something one has to accept in order to stay mentally stable (relatively speaking). So I submit a few poems here and there to literary magazines and almost expect to be rejected. It hurts for a few minutes maybe, and then I move on and work on something else.

About a year ago, I submitted a poem to Fairy Tale Review, a wonderful literary magazine edited by Kate Bernheimer of the University of Alabama. It is an annual publication completely dedicated to contemporary literature and visual art that celebrates folk and fairy tales. And each issue is designated a color, much like Andrew Lang's color-coded fairy tale collections. I submitted a poem called "Little Red Robin Hood" to be considered for their Red Issue, which of course is dedicated almost entirely to that most provocative figure, Little Red Riding Hood. I personally have a bit of an obsession with folk and fairy tales, even to the point of dedicating myself to a bit of scholarly study on the subject.

So here's the backstory behind my poem:

“Little Red Robin Hood” was influenced conceptually by Vladimir Propp’s theory of the morphology of the Russian folktale and Italo Calvino’s use of this theory in his novella The Castle of Crossed Destinies. With Propp’s idea of the combinatory structure of all folk and fairy tales and Calvino’s demonstration of this interchangeability of folktale plot-elements, I began to notice certain similarities between two very different, well-known folktales (although “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood” may be considered more legend than folktale): both protagonists named “Hood,” the predominance of the forest-setting, as well as the mysterious and elusive atmosphere that goes along with it. I always thought Robin was a girly-sort of name, anyway.

Obviously, I'd dedicated quite a bit of time and thought to this piece. Because I'm a dork, of course. But I still didn't expect anything to come of it. So a few months went by and I hadn't received any response from Fairy Tale Review. I just figured that maybe I fell through the cracks and into the slush pile. I had resigned myself to not receiving a response at all. And then, surprise! Yesterday, I had this wonderful message in my inbox:

So, it was a rejection letter. But this is the absolute BEST rejection letter I have ever received! I barely felt rejected at all. Other letters I'd received were the formulaic "Thanks, but we don't feel your work is right for our magazine" or "We regret that we are unable to use your work." This letter felt very personal and warm, like I had actually got someone's attention with my poem and held it for a little while. What's more, the invitation to submit again felt genuine and not just some polite olive-branch sentiment. I think I'm slowly moving up in the world.

In memory of the cranky and elusive Mr. Salinger

2010-01-30T10:10:00.002-05:00

Franny and Zooey is one of my all-time favorite books. The dialogue is always the best bit. And as I was re-reading that novella last night, I came across a particularly memorable passage that, once I had finished, I turned off the bedside lamp and went to sleep:

"'I know this much, is all,' Franny said. 'If you're a poet, you do something beautiful. I mean you're supposed to leave something beautiful after you get off the page and everything. The ones you're talking about don't leave a single, solitary thing beautiful. All that maybe the slightly better ones do is sort of get inside your head and leave something there, but just because they do, just because they know how to leave something, it doesn't have to be a poem, for heaven's sake. It may just be some kind of terribly fascinating, syntaxy droppings--excuse the expression. Like Manlius and Esposito and all those poor men.'"

Well said, J.D.

Ode to the Obsolete

2010-01-27T11:06:00.005-05:00

I recently adopted a typewriter: a 1955 Remington manual typewriter (found and acquired for free thanks to the Kent Freecycle network--see link in right margin). Ever since reading Words In Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell last year, I have had this desire to write with a typewriter. It is really a magical piece of machinery. I imagine it as being halfway between a letterpress and a word processor, but mechanically it is a very different beast altogether.

When I was testing my new old typewriter out, I felt like I was learning to play a new musical instrument. It even looks a little like a piano under the hood. Although the keyboard resembles those belonging to our modern computers, if you try to type as fast as you are used to with a computer keyboard, the letter-legs are likely to become tangled. So my first lesson was to type one key at a time--slow down a bit.

Another thing, there is actually quite a bit of space between the keys, enough so that your fingers can actually slip down between them. So my second lesson was to type more carefully, to aim more accurately with my key-pressing.

Finally, after a typewriter has been hibernating a while the ink ribbon tends to dry up a bit. This ribbon still had a bit of ink left in it but it was very faded. Amazingly enough though, people still make new ribbons for typewriters. So I have ordered two spools of what I hope is the right size/type of typewriter ribbon. Then I will have my third lesson: changing the ink ribbon. It doesn't seem to be too difficult, just a little more involved than popping a new cartridge into the inkjet. I found some really neat how-to videos online and I think I'll be able to handle it.

Words and Art for Sale!

2009-12-16T12:03:00.001-05:00

As previously promised (in the post before last), copies from the 50 volume edition of Sleight are now available for sale in Emily's Etsy shop! There are pretty pictures and all. Also, if you happen to live in the Chestertown area, our handmade book project is available locally at both Bookplate and Chestertown Arts League.

Words I want to use in a poem

2009-12-10T11:29:00.001-05:00

gut
gaudy
glow-worm
plumb
itch
wallpaper
organ-eyes
margin
mantle
fortunate

Let me count the ways

2009-11-18T11:44:00.003-05:00

So, the festival was amazing. It was everything we wanted it to be and more. Thank you to everyone who came out and an extra thank you to everyone who made it to the Small and Independent Press Panel at Bookplate--we were certainly feeling the love. A whopping 47 warm bodies! (as Secretary for the Book Festival, I have access to such statistics) Emily and I had a great time and actually managed to sell 9 books on Saturday--more than I was expecting, to say the least. I hope that soon we will have them available for purchase in Emily's Etsy shop.

We also got to discuss some of the things I write about on this blog: what draws us to printing and bookmaking, what are some problems we have encountered along the way. One well-intentioned audience member even suggested "professional help" for us poor, misunderstood creatures and my answer to that was that working out these problems on our own is part of the thrill of this field of work. I am so happy that we had the chance to debut this project, the very first from Thread Lock Press, at the very first Chestertown Book Festival. It felt so fitting. Emily and I do not yet have any specific ideas for our next project--but we know that there definitely will be a next one. We can't sit still for too long, that's for sure.

Only three more days to go

2009-11-11T12:29:00.006-05:00

We have now completed 36 books (including their fashionable fabric slipcases). They're so beautiful side by side by side on the shelf, I think. We need to finish the last 14 to complete this edition, but it's alright if they're not done in time for the festival. Hooray for paper, ink, thread and glue!

P.S. This gorgeous fabric came from Buttercuppityfabric's shop on Etsy.

Fall is for festivals

2009-11-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

Emily and I have just about finished the 50 book edition of Sleight, a book of three poems and three paintings. For the past month we have been sewing and gluing whenever we get the chance. After the book signatures are sewn together, we then tip-in the prints of Emily's paintings on the assigned pages with small amounts of acid-free adhesive applied to a wide strip along the top of the paintings' reverse side, and glue the fragile end papers to the backs of both the front and back covers. About 20 of the books are completed, only requiring their protective (and fashionable) fabric slipcases. We will be presenting our first book project at the Chestertown Book Festival on Saturday, November 14th. We will be participating in the Small and Independent Press Panel, moderated by local printer-poet Jim Dissette of Chester River Press from 12:00PM-1:30PM in the back room of Bookplate on Cross Street. Emily and I will be sitting on this panel with our illustrator-author friends Robbi Behr & Matthew Swanson of the wonderfully satirical Idiots'Books and local poet Dawn L.C. Miller who publishes her poetry collections under her press name, Blue Kettle Books. If you actually read my blog, I would love to see you there! We are very excited and hope this book we have made is only the first of many biblio-centric adventures together.

PMS-197: Girls and Ink

2009-10-07T16:21:00.009-04:00

The Pantone Matching System--not the PMS you were thinking, right? This is the system that assigns numbers to letterpress ink colors (and also identifies the components of standard ink colors that make up each numbered shade or tint). Emily and I finished our printing on Sunday, which required delving into more than just standard black rubber-based ink we've using to print Sleight's text. To print the lovely logo Emily carved on our full title page, we needed two colors. The first and lighter color would be applied to the uncarved linoleum block of the same dimensions as our Thread Lock logo (PMS-197). The second, much darker color would be applied to the carved block (PMS-202)--so the carved-away recesses show up in the first color and the uncarved background in the second. Now the deep maroon ink that is PMS-202 we actually found pre-mixed on Mike's print shop-shelves, but the elusive PMS-197 we had to mix ourselves. Sadly, I am an idiot and forgot to bring my camera to the shop that day, so I have no pictures to show of the actual ink-mixing process which is quite pretty and, of course, very colorful. But let me try my poetic powers at this and attempt to describe this ink-mixing experience.

The recipe for PMS-197 was something like 14 parts Transparent White (we substituted Opaque White here because we couldn't find any transparent--no pun intended), 1.5 parts Rubine Red (as opposed to Warm Red which is more orange-ish), and 0.5 parts Yellow. Once I had slopped these approximate amounts on the glass palette with my ink knife, I began to stir them carefully. It looked a bit like globs of thickened mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard swirling together, almost taffy-like in texture. The yellow ink kept seeming to streak through my mixture after I was sure I had thoroughly redistributed all three colors. I would turn over a fold of bubble-gum medicine concentrate and there would be hiding another independent-minded stream of yellow ink. Emily actually suggested adding a bit more than the recommended half part of yellow to get a more ideal color--I guess it's persistence won her over. In the end, we got a creamy strawberry-medicine color of ink (I always preferred that flavor to bubblegum, but sadly I was allergic). I did manage to get pictures of the results of our ink-mixing experiment.

Next week, we will begin folding pages and sewing our books. We will be using the coptic stitch method, sewing the front and back covers to the text block so that we can have that raw exposed spine. Who wants to do all that intricate sewing if it's just going to be covered up with paper and glue? Here's a practice book I did:

I suppose it's kind of girly for me to actually like sewing, but I can't help it. It's relaxing and creative all at once, and I guess I am a girl after all.

Thread Lock Press

2009-09-23T14:56:00.002-04:00

We're just about finished printing Sleight now. The only bit left is the run with colored inks (red and pink, we think). That is only on one page though: the full title page. Emily carved a logo design for Thread Lock Press (and Sleight, as the first production from TLP) in a linoleum block--which means we can put this image in the Vandercook and print it just like letterpress type! I can't wait to see how this turns out.

Labor of Love

2009-09-09T12:36:00.013-04:00

Monday was a day of productivity in the Lit House print shop. Emily and I were hard at work on our beloved book project all the cloudy, rainy holiday afternoon. Although our end and cover papers are on backorder, for our text paper we are using a lovely mold-made creamy white German paper that we found in Master Printer Mike Kaylor's personal stores in the print shop and purchased from him. So that was at hand and ready to be printed, as soon as we could cut it down to size: 7.5" x 12". Mike had just had the blade sharpened on his enormous paper guillotine, so he helped us with that. Then we moved the poem type (which had already been set over the last few weeks) to the beautiful Vandercook press that we would be using for printing. We managed to run off all three poems in their batches of 50, except when I got home, I discovered to my disappointment that even though I thought we had thoroughly proofed them, the 50 sheets of "Jack" still managed two delinquent letters: a "d" instead of a "b" and an "n" instead of a "u". I guess I let my excitement get me carried away. Oops. So now we have to print those 50 all over again, and the faulty pages will have to be put to use somehow--we can't just waste that good paper. But we still made some progress. We finished printing both "Childling King" and "Queen of Clover" with only a slight punctuation error (a semicolon in place of a colon, but that's not enough to matter, really--this perfectionist is still satisfied with that run).

Here's Mike at the massive paper-cutter (that he bought on eBay for only $20! He just had to move it himself):

A poem in the Vandercook and the ink rollers good and blackened with our ink:

Two proof pages (we decided to print the correlative card-suit symbols in the place of page numbers in the bottom left corners):

And here's Emily taking her turn cranking the press:

A printer's hands at the end of a good day:

Gone Paper-pickin'

2009-09-02T11:06:00.003-04:00

All three poems have been set now. So we shift focus to what they will be printed on (I tried this sentence without ending in a preposition and it just didn't work for me--so excuse the grammatical error). For the text paper, Emily and I searched the bowels of the print shop at the Literary House (Mike always some great extras laying around). We decided on a creamy white handmade paper with soft deckled edges. For the cover and end papers we went to Paper Mojo. They have some absolutely beautiful paper! After ordering some samples and having a look at them in person, we decided on the Mauve Unryu Thread paper for the end papers (figuring that the delicate translucent quality of the paper goes well with our "sleight" theme and the reddish threading follows our color scheme) and the Ivory Linen Cardstock for the cover paper. We will be printing on the covers with a deep red ink (similar to our thread color). Now we are just waiting for our backordered paper picks to arrive.

Back-words and Upside Down

2009-08-19T16:38:00.009-04:00

I've been making weekly visits to Mike Kaylor's print shop at the O'Neill Literary House to start working on the Sleight book project. So far I have the type for the first two poems set and have begun setting the type for the last one. Setting type letter by letter by space by punctuation mark is a tedious, slightly disorienting, but oddly relaxing task. Lines of poetry are set in the usual order: from top to bottom, from right to left (on the page)--with type that means that one places the character sorts (pieces of lead type) in this same order, but backwards and upside down on the composing stick. Even the character sorts themselves are the reversals their printed selves. So when searching around in the job case, 'b's look like 'd's, 'd's look like 'b's, 'p's look like 'q's, and 'q's look like 'p's. Sometimes we don't even realize we've switched these letters until we print the first sheet and proof it. This could possibly be the origin of the proverb: "Mind your P's and Q's." It can be confusing, but after a while you learn to read your words and sentences backwards.

Here's my progress:

"Jack"

The job case from which I've been working

My small workstation

I'm looking forward to going back for more next week!

Sleight: A Trio of Duets

2009-08-04T13:40:00.010-04:00

Emily has finished her beautiful watercolor paintings illustrating my three poems: "Jack," "Queen of Clover," and "Childling King"--and I am in love with them. You can read the poems here, if you wanted. Now it's time to get down to the actual makings of the book. I am so excited!

First, we need a press name. My press name for my solo projects is Goose Hill Press (could've guessed that one, right?); for my projects with Emma it is Chester Cat Press; and I'm still thinking about what to name my collaborations with Emily. Right now, I'm favoring Thread Lock Press, but we'll see what she thinks. And we've already got a title for the book itself. It is to be called Sleight. This title was decided upon because of the many ways in which this word naturally draws upon the themes inherent in the poems and paintings: Sleight as in "sleight of hand" card tricks (as explained in an earlier post, these three poems play with the Calvino-like idea of folk & fairy tales and playing cards); Sleight as in sounds like "slight" as in a slim volume of work (not even long enough to be a chapbook really), as in small children protagonists, as in the underestimation and marginalization of folk and fairy tales in the literary world. As you can see, quite a bit of thought went into this title selection.

Next, the design and layout of the book. I've decided that the text block itself will be one signature (it's only ten pages long including the half title, full title, dedication/acknowledgements, and colophon pages). But the end papers and the front and back covers will make it more like five signatures (as far as the sewing is concerned). I've chosen to use a coptic stitch for the binding for two reasons: 1. Because it is a natural choice for books with exposed spines (the red thread is an important thematic element connecting the poems and paintings so Emily and I want it to show); 2. Because it also has a beautiful braided effect. The covers will likely be a heavy sort of paper. I'm not quite sure about the dimensions of the book yet--probably somewhere around 4.5 inches x 7 inches. I don't know yet.

I will be printing the text of the book on master printer Mike Kaylor's antique letterpresses (housed at the Rose O'Neill Literary House). I've already started to set a bit of the type for the first poem. I've chosen Garamond for the font--nothing too flowery or decorative. It's plain but elegant--simple and subtle. Emily's watercolors will be scanned onto her computer and then printed out separately as full-color, photo-quality images. We will then attach them to the appropriate pages by tipping them in. We decided that this was the best method because the extra paper layer will keep the colors from showing through onto the other side of the page; and it was going to be difficult enough printing the text and images separately and using two totally different machines (It would have been extremely difficult to letterpress-print Emily's paintings, not to mention, expensive; and laser printing the text just seems like a cheap imitation when you have the practice on and access to a real live letterpress). This same generational tension (i.e. antique letterpress printing v. digital printing) is another theme that plays out in both the paintings and poems, so we knew we were going the right way about it.

We still need to pick out and purchase the paper we will be using for this book-project. This is going to be a very difficult decision for us both. But once that is arranged, we just need to cut it to the right size (still to be determined) and print! Once the type is set, that is. Then we attach the painting prints; bind the book and wrap it in some sort of heavy-paper protective slipcase. And if we finish in time, Emily and I could present it at the inaugural ChesBookFest in November! It's a great time to be a book-artist.

It's been a while...

2009-07-31T14:04:00.005-04:00

So it's now nearly August, my basil plants seem to be thriving and the rosemary is still green. The garlic bulbs have grown shoots and gone a bit brown but they're still too young and small to dig up, so I think harvest-time will come in a few more seasons.

I have also gotten two poetry submissions together for literary magazines. Three poems each, I have submitted one set to Weave magazine, a great small-press magazine to which I just began subscribing; and the second set I plan to submit to Ecotone, a university-press journal (to which I am also a recent subscriber) with the awesome tagline: "reimagining place." How cool is that? I am hopeful but I don't expect publication. We'll see. This may be my lucky break.

I was also recently offered to come aboard the newly-created Chestertown Book Festival, to be known as ChesBookFest. I was nominated to the position of secretary of the official planning committee and I have to say that I am very excited to be a part of this huge and well overdue project. Check out the above blog link for a little more info on the festival.

It's been quite a productive summer, I think.

When good garlic goes bad

2009-06-13T09:45:00.007-04:00

it grows? Apparently even my refrigerator is better with botanicals than I am. I've had these huge clumps of garlic that I bought at Super Fresh since last August maybe. I obviously bought more than I needed at the time and so never used that much of it. When I looked in the veggie drawer a while ago, I noticed my garlic had begun to sprout some green. I was at my friend Annie's yesterday and we were looking around in her garden. What I thought were onions, she informed me, were actually little garlic shoots. She said that instead of just throwing out her garlic when it had begun to go green, as mine were, she planted them instead. What an absolutely obvious and wonderful idea! Of course, this had not occurred to me.

So last night, I peeled every single garlic clove in those huge clumps. I now have 32 garlic babies to plant. Wow. And now that I am actually beginning to embrace the cooking-at-home thing, I may actually be able to use what I harvest. Mmmm... and my herb garden expands.

Getting down to business

2009-06-05T13:36:00.009-04:00

Well, the basil and rosemary have been transplanted from their plastic pots to the tiny herb garden by the back door. The only problem I can foresee is that, now that trees have filled out for summer, they might not get as much sun as they want. All my research tells me that both basil and rosemary like LOTS of sun. So, we'll see, I guess. I inherited my mother's brown thumb, so I have a bit of a curse to work against when it comes to nurturing plant life, something I'm hoping to overcome.

I also managed to break out of this latest writing slump. I actually managed to come up with a poem fragment last weekend that, I think, has quite a bit of potential:

Rainy Evening from the Chester River Bridge

Street-light runs down the
riverside like mascara

her inked-up winking
streaked and ...

And that's all I've got so far. But it's something! I feel refreshed now. Maybe I'll even manage a little something this week.

I've also been developing more ideas for the collaborative illustrated poetry chapbook project with my friend Emily. I'm dreaming about a one-signature text block bound in red thread with an exposed spine. There will be paper pockets tipped-in and a paperboard slip case like a box for a card deck.

To-do, to-do, to-do

2009-05-27T13:08:00.006-04:00

Inspired by poet-professor Jehanne Dubrow's blog post "Someday Soon", I've decided to create a new list of my personal goals for the near future. I also did this last summer, but with pen and paper, and it really can be helpful:

* to plant (and not kill) the basil and rosemary seedlings I have waiting out back in their temporary containers.

* to write one poem a week even if it's crappy (although I'd rather it be wonderful and fulfilling).

* to get Chester Cat Press started with Emma.

* to find some suitable, non-plastic lawn furniture.

* to make some more pesto (hopefully, with the basil in my tiny herb garden), and pesto mayo. Mmmm...

* to make something tangible of my collaboration with my painter-friend Emily, maybe a handmade chapbook, poems and illustrations, bound with red linen thread. Hmmmm...

* to submit more poems to literary magazines.

* to get my grandmother's 1950s Smith-Corona manual typewriter fixed-up and unstuck so I can use it to type poems and other such things.

* to watch less television (which will be made abundantly easier once the analog signals officially shut off in a couple weeks).

* to have more tea parties with friends.

* to make.

There is no such thing as writer's block

2009-05-02T09:06:00.003-04:00

So says Neil Gaiman. And I agree with him, but he also clarifies that statement saying that we do in fact get stuck on occasion. It's not as serious a situation as the term "writer's block" suggests with it's clinical sounding name, kind of like "tennis elbow" or "library knee" (which is when the knees audibly crack every time one bends them due to years of book-shelving--so, I made that one up, but I definitely have it). The point is, that kind of hypochondria won't fly around here anymore. But I have been stuck in my writing for quite a few weeks now, which tends to be a bit depressing and frustrating. I think my problem right now is more a lack of focus. I have all this pent up creative energy, this great urge to write, but I am really struggling with the ability to focus this energy on a particular subject. I want to write, but I don't know what I want to write about and that doesn't really do much good. My hope is that, by essaying this out, maybe I'll find my focus. I feel that this always happens after I've finished a particularly long, but satisfying poetic project (like the Jack, Queen, King series I finished up more than a month ago now). (sigh)

New friends are like honey in my tea

2009-04-18T09:05:00.015-04:00

Lately, I've been considering the fun of collaboration. My new friend Emily is a painter who has similar obsessions with folk and fairy tales and the like; and right now she's mulling over a few poems of mine to illustrate. I can't wait to see what she imagines visually from my words. Not to mention how flattered I am that she even wanted to use my poems as inspiration. I've often said that one of the reasons I was drawn to poetry as far back as I can remember is that I have no talent for visual art. Poetry allows me to express these often very visual ideas that I have, but with words rather than line and color and texture. I'm excited to see the reverse of this, to see what someone else sees when they read my poetry, to see what I could not draw or paint on my own.

While I'm waiting on that project, I decided I'd try it the other way around: write a poem based on one of Emily's paintings. Ironically enough, I had actually started a poem a few months ago that corresponds perfectly with Emily's painting "Tomato Birth" (I think, anyway). So, I took that forgotten fragment back out and worked on it a bit more.

Haematopoeisis

"I'd like to mention my rag time."
-Sandra Cisneros, 'Down There'

Bone marrow,
the earthen red
of an old wheel barrow,
an empty flower pot.

Then the blood
like tomato soup
from the mad-sad spleen,
pulpy and hot.

Well, it's still just a fragment, though a bit more substantial now. I've hit a block with it again, and I think it might be that I don't really want to work on that one right now. But I have had some fun with it. The title is the term for the biological process of making blood. I found it a fun word to play around with and it worked so perfectly with the images from which I was drawing. Inside haematopoeisis is "mato" (as in "tomato") and "poeisis" (as in "poesy"). The inscripted line just below the title is from Sandra Cisneros' poem "Down There" which is a wonderful exploration into the imagery of menstruation. Lovely and gory and unfeminine.

Adventures in bibliophilia

2009-04-08T14:58:00.006-04:00

Bookmaking is another activity of mine. Put that together with the writing, reading, letterpress printing, and library-work and I'm a very well-rounded bibliophile. A recent project of mine was making reversible poetry journals. By reversible I mean that the cover art allows for either end to be the front. It could even end up being a two-headed notebook; it's just full of possibilities, as most blank pages are. This "cover art" though is actually segments from "At the Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop (one of my favorites).

Maybe I should introduce myself

2009-04-04T09:09:00.011-04:00

Everything in the apartment is just a bit crooked. The false tile lines in the kitchen linoleum slant into the bottom borders of the cabinets and the sink. The slight diagonal of the light switch in the spare room is exaggerated by the decorative switch plate. And I don't think the ceiling and floor run exactly parallel either. But it's all somehow fitting.

My cat is a found cat. My friends discovered her outside of their dorm and gave her tuna fish and named her Kione (meaning "the one who came from nowhere"). But eventually we had to take this refugee off-campus and my place became her sanctuary. That's been nearly a year and a half ago. Now she's a luxurious housecat, although in some ways she seems to be part dog. She always greets me at the door, she wags her tail when she is in full purr-mode, and she drinks out of the toilet. She's perfect.

We also happen to have a dog lodging with us for the moment. She is (or was) my brother's dog, whom he named Karma, ironically enough. When circumstances found her fatherless, I scooped her up (she was much smaller at that point) and brought her to Goose Hill for what I thought would be a temporary stay. She is a beautiful hybrid: half pitbull, half rottweiler. And so unbelievably sweet underneath all of that equally unbelievable puppy-energy. She is now just short of one year old and has been with Kione and I for four and a half months. The only reason that she is not in my blog description is that I don't know how permanent a resident she will be here. But I have a feeling that she is mine now for good. Kione's not too happy about that, having been forced to camp out on top of the refrigerator for the past season and a half, but she's a survivor. And Karma is confined to the kennel when I am at work or asleep.

As for myself, I've wanted to write poetry since I was eight years old. And right now, life is pretty good.

In the name of poetry

2009-04-02T17:34:00.008-04:00

Not only is April National Poetry Month, it is also the month of my birthday. So exciting. Seriously. I also like to boast every now and then that I share my birthday (April 23rd) with Shakespeare. Granted, I'm sure LOTS of other people have this same birthday, but it makes me feel special sometimes. Oddly enough though, for someone as poetry-obsessed as I am, I don't actually have a favorite poem. I know, weird. Someday I will sit down and think about it and maybe then I'll decide. Or maybe not.

The last word

2009-03-27T13:35:00.036-04:00

Since December I have been working on a particular poetry project. This summer I wrote a poem of which I was really proud called "Jack." It took bits of the Jack and the Beanstalk fairytale and mixed them up with a child learning how to speak. I began with an image and just elaborated on it until I had a bit of story (which seems to be my primary poetry-writing method). But I think it became more than elaborated image when I made a little discovery through the writing of it. I had been stuck for a while smack dab in the middle of the poem; I needed some direction. Then one day it occurred to me: "Fe, fi, fo, fum." What is particularly of note, linguistically-speaking, in this folktale refrain? It contains mono-syllables using all the vowels in alphabetical order (excluding "a," of course). Silly or not, this was the point at which the poem really began to take shape and become one of my favorites:

Jack

for little Anna Sovich

Lips full as lima bean pods,

a pair of cocoons where

words are waiting.

I have to pull them out

like a string from the bowels,

viny vowels and all:

biting your bottom lip in frustration,

fay, fee, fie, foe, and fum

tumble onto the table

like soggy breadcrumbs.

Now you look up at me,

parenthetical eyebrows gathered

like overgrown hedges around

your stubborn frown:

silence has so many definitions

and your eye-language is

ambiguous as poetry.

So now, all that being said, I wanted to submit this poem of mine to literary magazines, but there are certain ways to go about these things (many of which, I am still learning). One bit of wisdom was something I overheard at a poetry reading at my alma mater. A current student was asking the new poetry professor for some advice about submitting poems for publication and what she said was something along the lines of: "Many magazine editors these days are looking to publish multiple poems from a particular poet at a time, particularly poems that have some sort of connecting thread." Now the problem was that I didn't really have any poems that I liked enough to send out that would fit alongside "Jack."

So... after that lengthy preamble, I come to the actual project mentioned in sentence one: of all the ideas I came up with, the one I most wanted to try was one that was based in fairytales and playing cards, sort of similar to the idea behind Calvino's fairytales and tarot cards in The Castle of Crossed Destinies. I already had "Jack," next would come a Queen poem and then a King poem. This was so exciting! After having a long hard think, around the end of December, I finally had my Queen poem. Mind you, the idea I had for this project was to have three loosely connected poems, not a numbered triptych, so I didn't want them to be too similar to one another. For Queen, I drew more from the Jack-pot (excuse the pun, I can't help it sometimes), using other fairytale and even Mother Goose Jacks: Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack and Jill, Jack be Nimble. In the end, I even decided on using a Mother Goose-type rhyme and meter as a change from the free-verse style I am more apt to use:

Queen of Clover

Come over, Green Jill,

from your house on the hill

nimble as a thimble

and down through the still.

On the count of three,

grass-stained and weak-kneed

quickly and prickly,

honey, sticky with bees.

Love caught in brambles

left in unspoken shambles,

not broken but folken,

another losing gamble.

Wanting something for which to fall

wallowing and weeping,

crooked crown and all:

a king worth the following,

a kingdom worth the keeping.

So that one could probably still use a little more work. I'm not sure quite yet. I know some of the rhymes seem to trip over themselves a little bit, I haven't decided whether that adds to the falling-down-hill dramatic action of the poem or just gets in the way. Any input on that matter is welcome. Once that was done, I had only the King poem left to mull over and create. Hmmmm.... I came up with the general idea in January; but the actual writing of the poem took until today. So far, both "Jack" and "Queen of Clover" had ended up being exactly 17 lines (coincidentally), so I knew that that was the general length I was looking for it to be, if possible. It dragged along one stanza, sometimes one line, at a time. This week, the only thing holding me back was the last word of the whole poem. It had to be the exact word that was needed there, nothing else would do; the diction demanded it be so, anything slightly off would make it archaic or cliche or something worse. But in the shower this morning, I knew what it had to be and it was so obvious that I couldn't believe it had taken so long for me to realize it. It was simple, fit the diction and voice, and also hit on the theme tying all three poems (loosely) together. So without further delay:

Childling King

The day you were born

they cut the umbilical cord

with giant silver scissors

like a grand red ribbon:

opening for a fable boy,

both feet on the kitchen table.

Your father had the honor

while the midwife made sure

you had two of each

of the necessary parts:

lips, lungs and all.

Made of neon light

and everything bright

mosquitoes and moths were

smudging up the window glass,

those black disco ball eyes

reading our fortune in your cards.

They call me Chart Girl

2009-03-25T14:53:00.011-04:00

One of the great things about those creative writing workshop classes was that they made you write, even if you didn't feel like it. Now that I'm out of school, I find it hard to create my own writing schedule, and even harder to stick to it. After a long hard think, I realized what part of that problem was about for me: accountability. In class, even creative writing, I had to turn in something even if it wasn't my best work, or I'd get a bad grade. The thing is, when there's no one to expect anything from me (except me), I discover that I am a big push-over and so I don't do my own homework. But then, I feel that awful guilt and uselessness that comes with not-writing; it's a very uneasy state of mind.

Then came: the chart. The objective: write one poem a week, even if it's crappy. By creating a physical log of my writing progress, I've made that accountability a palpable thing demanding evidence of time well spent. It's similar to the power of the list: crossing a to-do off of a list makes one feel that something has been accomplished or more-than-attempted. Granted, since I started this chart-keeping last May, I have met the required goal... well, every now and then. But even on the weeks that I don't write a new poem, I at least crank out a new fragment or add a few lines to an in-progress poem or revise something to be sent out for rejection. There are a few weeks that just have a line drawn through them because, well, life happens. But I can look at this chart (which is stuck to the side of my refrigerator) and see what I have done thus far.

I'd have to say that overall, this chart-business has been a success. I have been more prolific in the last year, than I have in all the other times I have been out of school (granted they were for shorter periods of time) and I'm also happier with the work I am doing because, despite the aforementioned objective, I find it hard to record the unworthy bits on my sacred chronological chart.

I love daffodils

2009-03-21T10:43:00.004-04:00

But I'm not really a fan of that Wordsworth poem. I don't mean to offend any devoted followers of Romanticism. It's just that the combination of flower-imagery and "dancing" tends to activate my gag reflex. And spring is such an archetypal poetic subject that it's hard to get beyond those, now, very over-used images. But spring, the actual experience of it, never gets old. The period of transition between seasons is always refreshing, though all around is rather vulnerable and exposed. This is a draft of a poem I've been working on the last couple weeks:

March (märchen)

The frogs make their purple sound,

Crocus. Crocus.

with the focus of crickets.

In the rain, the whole

town smells like swamp—

river-thaw and moss-musk.

*****

Well, so far it's just a fragment; but we'll see where it goes.