Anglophone Poetry and Indian Angles just out from Ohio UP

Anglophone Poetry and Indian Angles have at last appeared. Weighing in together at about a thousand pages of manuscript, they have been transformed into lovely tomes by Nancy Basmajian and her wonderful staff at Ohio.  For more information click on the Indian Angles tab above. Many diacritics and translation queries later, the two are ready for reading.  The Centaur typeface looks lovely, and we’ve even squeezed in a few illustrations.  Here are two of them:

Kasiprasad Ghose as he appeared in Fisher's Drawing-Room Scrapbook

frontispiece to Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, drawn by William Rothenstein

Woven in Juried Capital Show / Asheville Center for Book Arts

I’m happy to report that Woven was chosen by Eileen Wallace for the Capital Show at the Center for Book Arts.  The show is up for a few more days!  Then it’s time to fetch the accordion home, poundcake style, in my big plastic cakebox-like container.  Now it’s time for broadsides–in press at the moment is David Rigsbee’s new poem “Canoe.”  Sadly though, the printer was out of sorts, and awaits one more font!

"Woven" exhibited in the Capital Show

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Bookopolis drew a wonderful crowd.  It was fun to see all ages and aesthetics mixing it up.

An intent crowd of book lovers at Bookopolis 2011

This weekend at Bookopolis in Asheville was a treat…well over a 120 books in the show, with some forty or so in the Capital Show, juried by Eileen Wallace.  I learned a lot about books just by examining all the many possibilities.  And wonder of wonders, Woven is in the Capital Show through Thanksgiving.  Lots of wonderful work by Daniel Essig, Margaret Cogswell and others.  I loved Elsi Vassdal-Ellis’s “There goes the Neighborhood” (she from Bellingham, WA) which examines endangered neighborhoods and biodiversity.  And then on a different note was an amazing tiny book, “Outback Poem” by Sandy Webster from Brasstown.  Beautiful altered photos accompanying a letterpress poem.

Here’s “Woven” in situ.

Woven goes to Bookopolis, a show for letterpress, print and artists’ books Asheville

Woven, a sculptural book from Celo Knob Press

Bookopolis, the annual show for prints, artist’s books and letterpress is coming up at Bookworks in Asheville, opening September 23.  Bookopolis Weekend runs from Sept. 23 to 24, 2011, and includes the reception and show and workshops.  For information see ashevillebookworks.com.

Woven went to the show yesterday, but delivering a paper sculpture is a little tricky.  The solution, an upside down rubbermaid plastic box–think giant cake carrier.  This is the first artist’s book printed at the Celo Knob Press.

Also in the show: Emily Orzech’s screenprint Floating Tunnel, 2.  For other works, see her website, www.emilyorzech.com.

Emily Orzech Floating Tunnel, 2

Happily the final page proofs and indexes of Anglophone Poetry in Colonial India are off to the press today, joining their twin and heavier partner Indian Angles (which should be at the printer’s now).  Many thanks to Srinivas Aravamudan and Tricia Lootens for positive comments and help and to Julia Kimmel for last minute proofreading assistance.

Margaret Rabb, memorial poetry reading

On Sunday, April 3, many friends of the poet Margaret Rabb, who died last winter, met to celebrate her life.  The readings from Peggy’s work and from the readers’ own work created a memorable weaving together of recollection, elegy, humor, and meditation.  Many thanks to David Rigsbee for his organization, to all who read and offered their reminiscences–and to Sharon and Chris Ringwalt for their hospitality later. Here Ron Bayes tells stories about visiting Ezra Pound.

David Rigsbee, Daphne Athas, Jill Bullitt, Ron Bayes

Reprex is here!

Thanks to Steve Robinson of Rising Sun, Indiana, a spiffy new / old press has now landed safely in the Celo Knob Press shop.  Steve’s the greatest–good refurb, amazingly easy set up.  And now the press is up and running.  Here’s a ‘first light’ print run, along with a party invite for my graduating PhD and MA students.  You’ll also see the first production from the Samizdat Press, whose proprietor I’m allowing to use my equipment.  The Samizdat editor is working on a truth-in-labeling project he calls the Orwell Project.   First item, a set of desk cards: on one side “Big Stick” and on the other “Best Practices.”  Broadsides to come!

The shop with press

Heres the press, side view, with the inking wheel on the right.

Celo Knob Press

Furniture, slug cutter, slugs--let's hear it for sawhorses too.

Over the past three years I’ve begun publishing letterpress broadsides and chapbooks, under the press name Celo Knob Press.  My current project is a series of broadsides featuring poems by North Carolina poets.  This spring I’m collecting the parts of a printshop, soon to be installed in my basement out in the country from Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Here’s the furniture, the wooden spacing you use to lock up a type form in the press bed.

Centaur, a lovely face for Indian Angles

Wikipedia has a nice description of Centaur:

Centaur is an Humanist Type Family originally drawn as titling capitals by Bruce Rogers in 1914 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The typeface is based upon several Renaissance models. Rogers’ primary influence for the Roman was Nicholas Jenson’s 1475 Laertis, considered the model for the modern Roman alphabet.

Centaur also shows the influence of types cut by Francesco Griffo in 1495 for a small book titled De Aetna written by Pietro Bembo. The 1929 typeface Bembo, is based primarily upon that specimen. Rogers later added the Roman lowercase, and the italic, based upon Ludovico Arrighi’s 1520 chancery face, was drawn by Frederic Warde, and is the typeface released for general use in 1929 by the Monotype Corporation Ltd.