Precariat Press

It's been a good few years that I have been thinking of putting together a collection of my poetry and wondering how I should go about it. While self-publishing has, in contemporary times, always gotten a bad rap as "vanity", historically it was crucial to artistic survival: the Woolfs founded the Hogarth Press and printed Virginia's work, and earlier, across an ocean, Walt Whitman published his enduring work Leaves of Grass himself. Most recently I have been inspired by American writer, Jim Trainer, who vowed to publish a collection of his poetry annually for ten years (I have 2018 & 2019 collections, but I think he started in 2015). I was originally drawn to his writing through his monthly article, The Coarse Grind, and his own blog of personal journalism, Going for the Throat, before I discovered that he was a poet too. So, in good company I set about founding my own press. After sessions of brainstorming with my husband, artist James Hayes, a name for the press and an image for its logo were decided. James designed this logo in record time for me.

I had already decided that my first collection would be a chapbook, with the title and cover image based on the bon voyage card I made for my grandparents after first meeting them in 1967. I gave an explanation of what led to that meeting and images of the original card in my blog post last week. Here is the idea sketch for the cover. I will do a full drawing as it will be a lino block print. I was dithering about handpainting areas of colour, but it is most likely to be monochromatic. While I have use of a printing press, I plan to print the front and back covers as one page, also making a linocut of the logo, so colour has yet to be decided.

Just Kids

Yesterday I finished reading Patti Smith's "Just Kids", her story (mostly) of the relationship between her and artist Robert Mapplethorpe and their early time together in New York. Smith's writing is beautiful and the love with which it is written is so pure. Of course, I was bawling my eyes out at the end, knowing the inevitable devastation at the death of Mapplethorpe.

I had the great fortune to see an exhibition of Mapplethorpe's flowers on my second trip to New York in 1981. I was obsessed with yellow tulips at the time myself and he photographed them beautifully. I love his photos of flowers. Here is Calla Lily from 1984:

And Poppy from 1988:

And a portrait of Patti Smith from 1986:

I am always interested in finding new things by Patti Smith -- she is a very generous artist (poet, painter, musician). Here she shares some advice for writers given to her by William Burroughs. And here she is performing a wonderful tribute to Virginia Woolf.

Before xmas I came across a review of and link to the film Patti Smith: Dream of Life by Steven Sebring in Brainpickings and finally had time to see the film which was ten years in the making. The review and film can be accessed here. It is a wonderful and insightful 2007 documentary which also includes older footage. A joy to watch.