Elementary Platen Presswork
By Ralph W. Polk & Edwin Polk
This book is one of the best primers on platen presswork. While Ralph Polk’s better known book, The Practice of Printing is quite good, I find, as a designer, that Elementary Platen Presswork is much better and more useful. The latter focuses its’ attention on the actual working of the press, leaving the concepts and aesthetics of design out. This book guides the reader step by step through the procedures in putting a job on the platen press, preparing them for printing, and feeding the work through the press. It is an excellent guide.
Find it at Amazon.
Printing For Pleasure
By John Ryder
A classy, little book, pleasing to look at and inspirational for the novice printer. This introductory work gives a breif overview of the hobby of letterpress printing. Covering how to choose a press, type, paper and ink, as well as planning, design and production, it is a good place to start if you are just considering taking up this avocation.
It can be hard to find sometimes.
Find it at Amazon.
The Elements of Typographic Style
By Robert Bringhurst
If you work with type at all and you have not read or do not own this book, you are probably not setting type correctly. This book covers designing with the correct typeface; striving for rhythm, proportion, and harmony; choosing and combining type; designing pages; using section heads, subheads, footnotes, and tables; applying kerning and other type adjustments to improve legibility; adding special characters, including punctuation and diacritical marks and more.
Find it at Amazon.
Poetry
The Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation works to raise poetry to a more visible and influential position in American culture. Rather than celebrating the status quo, the Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry. In the long term, the Foundation aspires to alter the perception that poetry is a marginal art, and to make it directly relevant to the American public.
Visit www.poetryfoundation.org
Lilliput Review
Lilliput Review is a print magazine founded in 1989 and dedicated to the short poem. The magazine’s normal format, 4.25 x 3.5″, reflects its name and that focus. It is published quarterly, two issues at a time, with every 4th issue being a broadside featuring the work of a single poet. Subscriptions are cheap!
Visit Lilliput Review
The Gurilla Poetics Project
In a nutshell, the GPP is a guerilla marketing strategy that exists to bring the poetry of the underground and small press poets of the world to the mainstream by smuggling mini broadsides into target book stores and libraries. The broadside is found by an unsuspecting reader. The unsuspecting reader wonders who is behind such a marvelous surprise and goes to the GPP web site to register their find. They discover a new world of poetry and poets that they never knew existed. They are so inspired that they too become an operative, and the process begins all over again.
Visit www.guerillapoetics.org.
