Printing poetry : A workbook in typographic reification / Clifford Burke

Identifier:REF.TY.2242

Dimensions:xv, [1], 150, [2] p. ; 28 cm.

Publication dates:1980

Subjects: Graphic design (Typography), bookbinding, offset printing, poetry, typography

Description:A handbook discussing tools, type design, printing, binding used to produce a finely printed book of poetry. Explains the mechanics of letterpress printing, design fundamentals, paper, ink, and binding. Illustrated with examples throughout.

"'Printing Poetry'" is the most appealing manual of the craft I have ever read. It gets the technical information across as readily as its predecessors, but it also approximates the psychology of fine printing in a way no other attempts. For instance, the acute paragraphs on the psychology of setting type, the feel of it, the rhythm of it. Other points of the composition of books are approached with equal sensitivity.

What this book does, then, is place in the hands of a new generation of aspiring printers a manual that relates to the craft in its present situation, as it is currently practiced, rescuing from the commercial triumph of the offset process the saliance of letterpress as an art factor. For though letterpress printing is not a fine art, nor can ever be, nevertheless it touches the aesthetic dimension sufficiently to catch its vibration, and when combines with poetry rises to the elevation of the poem, expanding its life." -- From the Foreword

"'Printing Poetry' was designed & printed by Clifford Burke in an edition limited to two thousand copies. The text was composed in Monotype Italian Old Style by Scott Freutel with the assistance of Warren Faust, casting, and Lynn Willeford, proofreading, at the Spring Valley Press, Langley, Washington, where the book was printed. The types used for illustrations are from American Type Founders, Los Angeles Type Founders, Mackenzie-Harris Corp, Stephenson Blake, and the Spring Valley Press. The paper was made especially for this book by the Curtis Paper Co, Newark, Delaware; it is similar to their 'Utopian' text. Inks were provided by Daniel Smith Ink Co, Seattle. The text is printed in Traditional Relief Black No. 79, the rubrication in a mixture of Daniel Smith's Special Vermillion and Hanco's Leaf Brown. (These inks required the addition of approximately seven percent dryper: Monsoon Dryer, from John E. Mandlik, Ozone Park, New York). The binding was executed by the Cardoza-James Bindery Co, San Francisco, under the supervision of Vince Mullins. Work on the book began 2 January 1980 and was completed in September." --Colophon.