& MOVING ALONG NOW (15 YEARS)

Well, the NewLights Press has been in existence for 15 years. I’m not quite sure what this means, other than that there is still so much more work to do. But a great deal has been done: 41 titles, 10 or so broadsides (some co-published with the Dolphin Press at MICA and not shown on this blog), numerous posters and ephemerations. Readings, workshops, panels, book fairs. Friends and family. Exhaustion and gratitude.

I am, I believe, optimistic about the future. New spaces and new forms are emerging, and perhaps new work can be done.

This year will be a hiatus: there will be no “official” Say Hello to Your Last Poem! readings—but there will probably be some summer readings at Mountain Fold Books.

This year will be a fullness: a summer class at Naropa, and at Colorado College. Some personal events of note. & books: the third iteration of The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press, potentially a supplement or submanifesto to go along with it, a book of poems by Marina Eckler, some new, larger artists’ books, a coloring book, the REAEDR magazine, and some things certainly unplanned.

There is an urgency, and an inarticulation. A dis-speaking, diswriting. Language continues to fail. The alphabet breaks apart, worn away like all things in the world. Can we write or print or make beyond or outside of it? Is there a book or something else, there, outside? Is there an outside there? Or is this a bringing inside? Here?

Imagine an object, or a life, stripped down to its richness.

Attention is the only thing worth paying.

Incomplete & potential.

To move & to dwell.

***

To mark the 15 year anniversary this week, some gifts for you:

SALE! All books and broadsides are on sale, 15% off, through next Tuesday, 5/12/15. The listed prices are the same, but when you click the button it should be 15% less.

FREE! We have released three new digital archive books: The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press (second iteration), Anna’s Half / Anselm’s Half, by Anna Moschovakis and Anselm Berrigan, and Divya’s Half / Mathias’s Half, by Divya Victor and Mathias Svalina. Scroll down for those.

SUBMIT! On Thursday we will release, finally, the call for submissions for REAEDR, the magazine of one word poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

GATHER! There will be a reading/party at Mountain Fold Books in Colorado Springs on Saturday, May 30. Events TBD, but most likely some sort of artist’s talk about NewLights, and some poetry.

As always, thank you for reading. Your presence makes the world.

FROM THE ARCING AIR

This image is a shot of a broadside by Ugly Duckling Presse, on display as part of a chapbook show, curated by Marina Eckler and Matvei Yankelevich, at the Coburn Gallery at Colorado College. Photo by our new friend Jeanne Liotta.

A valid question: where have I been? I often ask myself that same thing.

There are of course no good answers. I have been away from this space for awhile now, because I am in over my head teaching a class about DIY/small press publishing with Matvei Yankelevich, poet and (one of the) editor(s) of Ugly Duckling Presse. It has been amazing, and as we move into the last week and a half it’s just going to get better. There will be more details about all of that on The Press Blog, eventually.

But the class and the events of the past couple weeks will stretch beyond their casual boundaries. Things are stirring here on the front range. In the next couple of weeks on this blog look out for some more digital editions of out-of-print NewLights titles, in particular the fully realized and downloadable DIY Books.

A good friend who I don’t get to see very often anymore told me about going skydiving, and there was one aspect of the experience that had never occurred to me—the profound quiet of it, of drifting slowly through the empty air. The thought of actually skydiving terrifies me, but there’s something about the idea of that quiet that I can’t let go of. Once I can find the courage to jump everything that NewLights does will emerge from that quiet. It’s always this.

WAKING, CATCHING UP, WAKING

My apologies for the lack of posts lately. The NewLights Press has been very busy, to the point where these silent mornings of writing had to be used for catching up on sleep or for going in to work early. But now a new book is done, the book labeled As-Of-Now Untitled in the last few “Production is Reception” posts, the book made to be an insert in JAB 31. It has a title now: Clerestory. The images above and below are from the binding. 600 copies, our largest edition yet. They should be going out with the new issue by April 1st.

Maybe it’s Daylight Savings Time, or maybe it’s the winter slowly receding, but I feel like this somehow marks a turning point for NewLights. A subtle one, for sure. A turning point that will almost certainly only be perceptible to me. We shall see. Somewhere in here is a new beginning. Maybe because that last book was essentially about new beginnings, the new beginnings given to us all each day. We all have our own ways of marking time.

The tests that I conducted for the printing of Clerestory were also secret tests for the next book, The Heads by Justin Sirois. The tests determined that my idea for the book was not going to work (see above). So it’s back to the beginning on that. Always these new beginnings, but what a great place to be.

And it seems appropriate to leave this morning’s meditation with the message that has been sitting on my desk for a few weeks now, that will soon be added to the wall in front of my desk so that I can see it everyday. It’s from the ILSSA, and it speaks for itself:

[A quick note about the image above: the scan doesn't really do the actual object justice, as that orange you are seeing is actually fluorescent ink on the real thing. These screens have their limits.]

I HAVE NOT BEEN BLOGGING SO MUCH BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN PRINTING SO MUCH

Time is composed of groups of marks on stacks of paper that will become stacks of books for groups of people.

“Work is best done in a state of flow in which one is fully engaged by the task and there is no sense of time passing.”






These images are scans of the set-up sheets for Kyle Schlesinger’s What You Will. The pages are now completely printed. The covers and jackets remain, only 62 more runs.

THREE DAY LABOR WEEKEND

Fig. 09.09.03
The substance of the life these days.

The image above shows the detritus from the main activity of this past weekend: a pile of letters removed from the stencils for the new broadsides. Hey, Aaron, I thought those broadsides were supposed to come out today. Well, you’re obviously mistaken, because my last post clearly says that they will come out on Wednesday.

But seriously, I want to do this right, and I am already late for work, and I refuse to hurry and do a half-assed job. So tomorrow. Really.

YE OLDE BLOGGUE

is not the focus this week. More next.

PRESS CHECK!

This morning, so no time to write!