Many readers profess an undying love for the book itself, eschewing any interest in e-books and electronic devices that separate them from the tactile experience of ink and paper. And to some, even the endlessly reproducible, offset-printed book is too high-tech and limited in appeal. For these readers, a handful of publishers continue to produce books that speak directly to that love of paper and ink, using centuries-old bookmaking techniques in a combination of traditional and highly innovative forms.
Using time-honored printing and binding methods, but appealing more to art collectors and connoisseurs of rare editions, are publishers like Arion Press, a San Francisco—based publisher with a strong history in fine printing. Founded by Andrew Hoyem in 1974, one of its first publications was a 250-copy edition of Moby-Dick, complete with a blue Moroccan goatskin binding and 100 woodcut engravings. The press moved on to publishing books of original prints by artists like Jim Dine, Jasper Johns and Robert Motherwell in the 1980s, then in the '90s it began to incorporate the works of younger artists. The writers Arion publishes tend to be tried and true, such as Arthur Miller, John Ashbery, Rudyard Kipling and William Carlos Williams, and its limited editions sell for as little as $75 and range up to $12,500.
At the same time, various independent presses, especially those that operate under the premise of passion rather than commerce, have been keeping the traditions of bookbinding, letterpress printing and other aspects of the book arts alive, but focus more on new writing than on old fine-press techniques. And like the rest of the book-publishing world, as well as any field of the fine arts, their work is in a constant state of flux.
"It was in the late '50s that a few people starting using letterpress equipment to produce books as part of the literary community," says Allan Kornblum of Coffee House Press in Minneapolis. Kornblum, who started off with a press called Toothpaste in the early '70s, took as his model the Auerhahn Press. Founded by Dave Haselwood, Auerhahn was highly involved with the works of the San Francisco Renaissance, printing works by Philip Lamantia, John Wieners, Robert Duncan and William Burroughs in handmade editions that sold for just a few dollars each. Kornblum produced books on that model for more than a decade, but in 1984 debuted his still-operating Coffee House Press with an offset-print book. Similarly, Graywolf Press, Copper Canyon Press, Burning Deck and many others who started off using low-tech bookmaking practices to promote new voices in poetry and fiction turned to more efficient means of producing their books, while remaining interested in innovative or unknown writers.
Rena Rosenwasser of Kelsey Street Press, which was founded in 1974 with a Vandercook press, says, "After a number of years, we realized we were devoting too much of our time to making the books, with not enough focus on marketing and distribution." Still, Kelsey Street, with its strong list of experimental women writers, continues to be invested in the physicality of the book. "Even when we do offset books, we work with printers who care as much about bookmaking as we do." Further, Kelsey launched an ongoing series of artist/writer collaborations in the mid-'80s, reviving the old letterpress only for the rare limited edition.
Like Kelsey Street, several other small, independent presses maintain their connection to the book arts, while taking the form of the book as seriously as the writing within it. These presses use the forms to varying degrees of complexity and innovation, and though they operate on the fringes of the bookstore/publisher/distributor model, they are not so far afield as to be exclusively for art-collector audiences.
Charles Alexander of Chax Press in Tucson, Ariz., has been working in bookmaking for decades, including a stint as the director for the Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis. Part of the Chax mission is "to create unique book arts editions of innovative writing." He says, "Reading involves the space of the text, and the context of that space. Part of this has been opened up by writers such as Charles Olson, with his conception of 'field.' The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé was also key in his conception of the poem unfolding in the space of a book."
Alexander continues, "My own practice is to think of the bookmaker or designer as collaborator, working from inside the text to find the form of the book that is appropriate." Chax chapbooks combine desktop-publishing technologies with hand-bookbinding techniques and sell for about $12. A recent book by Lyn Hejinian and Ray DiPalma, on the other hand, is printed in an edition of 80 and sells for $320. Between the chapbooks, the regular trade editions and books such as this one, Chax is active in both the writing and the bookmaking arts.
Also citing Mallarmé-famous for saying "Everything in the world exists to end up in a book"—but keeping his press's focus limited to books in the price range of $5 to $12 (with the occasional $20 to $75 volume), David Baratier of Pavement Saw Press in Columbus, Ohio, publishes a series of "fine chapbooks" of new poetry, as well as an array of trade editions. "Each chapbook requires a different form that is entirely dependent upon what the poem series demands," he says. For instance, for Gordon Massman's The Numbers, the press chose an almost-square format. "These poems are very weighted and are bricklike in look and effect." Other poems, he says, "need extra space for the words to nest in," thus take on something other than the standard 6"×9" format. Pavement Saw's series of chapbooks publishes debut poets, often of local origin. These writers are considered innovative insomuch, as Baratier says, that "out here, if a writer is alive, they're instantly avant-garde."
Baratier also distributes books for Bloody Twin Press, whose list includes Tom Clark, Anne Waldman, Howard McCord and several lesser-known poets. Mainly publishing limited-edition chapbooks with archival art papers, letterpress text and hand-sewn bindings, these books sell for about $20—$25. "Traditionally, the audience for Bloody Twin has been libraries and end-use consumers who are collectors or who value poetry which is not intended to be read just once," says Baratier.
Also stressing the text itself, Alastair Johnston, who along with Frances Butler runs the Poltroon Press in Berkeley, Calif., says, "We like experimental writing when it works." Poltroon's list includes experimental mainstays such as Leslie Scalapino, Tom Clark, Tom Raworth, Lucia Berlin and Philip Whalen. Poltroon also publishes a variety of trade and fine-press editions, ranging from $13 to $1500, though generally even its most elaborate productions sell for $200 or less. "We always kept the prices ridiculously low to make the books affordable," Johnston comments.
Johnston's expertise in bookmaking and design has inspired volumes using silk-screening, coptic bindings, magnesium-relief etchings and even spray paint. Far more involved in production, but limited in edition, these books are as much art object as poetry publication. But for Johnston, it's not enough to make a beautiful book; the form must say something about the content, and vice versa. This is true for both trade and limited editions.
"The big presses try for such wedding in their design, but they don't really give it enough thought. There may be a gimmicky dustjacket or type trick in the chapter headings, but you don't often see really good allusive typography from the big houses." The authors published by Poltroon also won't be found among the larger, commercial presses. "We generally don't publish anyone who could get a large trade publisher or is already well established."
Further distancing the press from staid traditions and commercial practices, he says, "We take every opportunity to attack the sacred cows of 'fine' printing.... We were frowned on by the fine presses, who didn't get the humor, and ostracized by the samizdat, who thought our attention to the physicality of the books meant they were too highfalutin to be taken seriously as grassroots publishing."
Granary Books in New York City, after incarnations as a rare-book dealer and occasional letterpress publisher, has in the past decade achieved a balance between tradition and experimentation, trade and fine-press publishing, to become one of the most active of all publishers working in nonstandard book forms. "We couldn't do one without the other," says publisher Steven Clay, regarding Granary's activity in both trade and special editions.
Among Granary's trade books are several volumes on the history and theory of bookmaking. A Secret Location on the Lower East Side, co-published with the New York Public Library, documents the work that came out of a particular time and place, examining both the words and their manifestations in book form. "Books like this need to be available in institutions. The literary history of our time is being written now, and it's important that the documentation be there," says Clay.
Johanna Drucker, an expert in the field of artists' books, is the author of Granary's The Century of Artists' Books, Figuring the Word and The Word Made Flesh, as well as an essay in the recent A Book of the Book, edited by Clay and Jerome Rothenberg. In her essay, she says, "In many ways it could be argued that the artist's book is the quintessential 20th-century artform. Artists' books appear in every major movement in art and literature...." As an important part of Granary's mission, these "books about bookness," as Clay refers to them, "help to keep the whole field alive."
But the bulk of Granary's output, and perhaps what the press is best known for, consists of a diverse array of limited-edition books that marry form and content in carefully selected combinations of paper, ink, silk, cardboard, photo transfer, video stills, collage, cloth over boards, clamshell boxes, photocopies, mezzoprints, monoprints and other nontraditional materials. These author and artist collaborations are priced, appropriately, like artworks, rather than books, and feature the work of artists such as Tennessee Rice Dixon, Emilie Clark, David Rathman, Alex Katz and Carolee Schneemann, as well as "artist/designer in residence" Julie Harrison.
Even the trade editions belie the house's distinct attention to design and artwork, and are sold through Distributed Art Publishers, as well as through the publisher's Web site (www.granarybooks.com) and mailing list. Among these books are works by poets Ted Berrigan, Kenward Elmslie and Robert Creeley and artist Joe Brainard; many are artist/writer collaborations.
Granary's recent catalogue, When will the book be done?, is itself an elaborate production, with lavish illustrations and descriptions of almost 100 Granary publications, featured on two-page spreads. The catalogue also serves as a brief history of the press and, with a foreword by Charles Bernstein, as an introduction to the ideas behind it. Its lack of price information is more testimony to Granary's unusual approach to the market.
"It's hard to identify the audience," says Clay. "For the small editions, probably 90% go to libraries' special collections and museums. The rest go to readers, poets and artists who just have to have the thing."
Most of these fine-press and limited-edition publishers sell their books through their own Web sites and mailing lists, but each of them also acknowledges Small Press Distribution of Berkeley, Calif., as its connection to a wider base of readers.
Laura Moriarty, SPD's acquisition and marketing director, says, "As the only nonprofit distributor of small press books, we regard it as an important part of our mission to support the book arts in making available publications that are short-run and in some way hand-produced, but which are not selling at high-end prices."
In addition to the presses mentioned above, SPD also distributes Skanky Possum, a magazine focusing on experimental poetry that features a hand-painted cover; books by Jargon Society, an oft-cited influence of many of these presses; and books by Kore and Em Press. Since no commercial distributor handles these materials, SPD serves a vital role in keeping these publishers in contact with bookstores and readers.
A new company, Superlative Books: Handmade, Small Press & Unusual Books of Distinction, of Kokomo, Ind., hopes to break into the admittedly small niche of distributing such books this spring. It has begun with a Web site (www.superlativebooks.com) and will produce a catalogue for individuals and institutions. Cofounder Dan Waber says, "These books tend to fall between the cracks of traditional distribution channels. They are produced in editions that are too small. They are too much like art for bookstores, but they are too much like books for art galleries." His long-term goal, in addition to making these books more accessible to a wider range of readers, is to have a storefront and warehouse operation.
The need to publicize new, untried voices in literature, which inspired presses like Coffee House and Burning Deck to begin publishing in the 1970s, now leads many literary communities to the inexpensive alternative of the Internet. "I think there is a similar impulse involved in creating a literary Web site," says Moriarty, noting a connection between this impulse and "the energy and aesthetics involved in some fine-press material. The emphasis here being not on the fine-press qualities but on the aesthetic autonomy and engagement with the most contemporary and also most idiosyncratic production methods."
But it's exactly those fine-press qualities, and the tactile pleasure they provide, that motivates these publishers to continue their work with such time-worn machinery as the Vandercook press, the needle and thread, bone folders and the human hand. As Poltroon's Johnston says, "We love obsolete technology.... When something goes wrong, you can look for the loose nut or the wheel that needs grease. Try that on your PC!"
