Tag Archives: Vanishing Tracks

Designing a (haiku) drink coaster, pt 2

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Eight haiku. Twenty four total lines. A unique drink coaster printing project.  What’s the big deal?

Hundred-year old presses. Tiny pieces of metal type. Questions like, errr, do we have a ligatured ff instead of a regular ff? Did a piece of roman type slip into the italic type drawer? Did we just really run out of lowercase e’s?? And so on.

First poem in the haiku sequence. The ink is a rich dark green.

First poem in the haiku sequence. The ink is a rich dark green.

Here’s Emily’s design for the haiku side of the coaster, with a proof on regular paper placed on top of a coaster so you can see the approximate registration.

I like that the haiku has its own space, and that all the other information, including the title and sequence of the poems, is on the back. It gives the reader the experience of the poem alone.

And here’s a proof of the last poem in the sequence:

An old Marvel Comics-inspired No-Prize to anyone who spots the Boy I'm Glad We Proofed This detail.

An old Marvel Comics-inspired No-Prize to anyone who spots the Boy I’m Glad We Proofed This detail. Oh, wait. I’m out of No-Prizes. So just read the copy to the left.

I was so enamored with seeing my own work printed in beautiful Garamond that it took me over a dozen views before I noticed the “s” in the first line is a roman “s” and not an italic “s”. Now there’s a whole philosophical movement going back a couple-three generations among some printers that states you should leave some flaws in your work, because after all to err is human, and in some cases perfectly so. But in this case I decided that I’d just stick with fixing it and not get all philosophical.

That will be the reader’s job, upon the second or third drink…

Photos courtesy of St Brigid Press

Designing a (haiku) drink coaster, pt 1

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This jigsaw of metal type, wood and quoins (those locks that hold it tight)...

This jigsaw of metal type, wood and quoins (those locks that hold it tight)…

I met with Emily Hancock of St Brigid Press today to go over some designs and proofs of the “Night Walk on Cape Cod” haiku sequence. When you set metal type by hand, you cannot be cavalier with your design decisions! After years of using InDesign to design books, it was wild getting back into a workspace where each letter and every bit of “empty” space is actually a physical object to place so that the reader best navigates the printed page. (No Ctrl-Z here, sez he!)

...placed on this hundred-year-old press and adjusted and tweaked by Our Dedicated Printer...

…placed on this hundred-year-old press and adjusted and tweaked by Our Dedicated Printer…

The full set will be 8 coasters, each with a different haiku from the sequence. The front/top will have the haiku with a wave-like ornament, printed in a wonderful dark green. Emily hand-mixed this color using at least two different greens and black.

The back will have the sequence title, the place of the poem within the sequence, and the printer’s mark.

Emily has set type for five of the eight haiku, and printing will begin this weekend.

In letterpress printing, nothing is as simple as it seems. Even in printing the coaster’s back, Emily will have to stop printing eight different times, pull the type off the press, and adjust the sequence number on the back (see below for proof of what the back of the first coaster will look like).

...turns into this proof of the coaster's back. In the background is an actual coaster, undoubtedly anticipating its eventual transformation.

…turns into this proof of the coaster’s back. In the background is an actual coaster, undoubtedly anticipating its eventual transformation.

The typeface for the poems is Garamond Italic, and in the next post I’ll show a few proof samples of the haiku design.

Photo of the press courtesy of St Brigid Press

Haiku + Drink + Fine Letterpress Publisher = Coaster Sequence??

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NightWalkonCapeCod_prep1

At St Brigid Press, the table is set for design–and the type is set, as well, if you can read backwards.

I’m happy to announce that I’m working with Emily Hancock of St. Brigid Press to publish a haiku sequence entitled “Night Walk on Cape Cod” … in a very unique letterpress format.

Emily, whose work is featured in an article in Blue Ridge Life magazine, has done some great typographical work in books, posters, even a cool American Authors drink coaster series.

coastersdetailstbrigid

Samples of the “American Novelists Series” of letterpress drink coasters from St. Brigid Press.

Over the past few days Emily has begun designing a series of coasters which will comprise the eight-part haiku sequence “Night Walk on Cape Cod” from my book Vanishing Tracks. The set will be available soon here on the Translations site as well as at St Brigid Press.

Haiku on drink coasters? Would it be wrong of me to say that the combination strikes me as, well, intoxicating? (Okay, so it would be wrong. I just can’t seem to hit the backspace key, though.) Imagine lifting your favorite drink off the counter of your equally favorite drinking hole–even if that is your kitchen or den–and seeing the engimatic three line stanza that immediately identifies itself to you as a haiku, looking up at you invitingly as you take your first drink. Go ahead, read it. It doesn’t have to make sense. A few sips later, maybe some interpretive inspiration hits you, hmm, and next thing you know you are all zen with the world and entertaining your guests (or pets) with your newly found elucidation of things deep and mysterious. And like any literary treat, these coasters are reusable, and only get better with age, much like their content.

Should I go on? Great for book club meetings, most of which tend to involve some form of refreshing beverage! When you consider that the labors of writing and reading literature often drive a person to drink, it’s nice to be able to turn the tables on that equation and say that the enjoyment of drinking could potentially turn one to reading poetry…and appreciating fine printing.

I’ll have order information and some samples up on the site soon.

The print run will be limited so feel free to contact me if you would like to reserve a set. Opa!

 

Photos courtesy of St Brigid Press

Poem for the last leaves…

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leavesTwelve Bells

Twelve bells. Middle of the middle of October’s night.
Leaves hanging on. They want you to remember
The shade they have provided, the sweet field
They made in the summer sky.

But everybody wants them to look like they will
When they have forgotten everything but dying.

Now in the dark, in the middle of the stirring
Season they can briefly mark
At once what we miss and anticipate:
The green whisper outside the window

That softened the dream of the world’s first cold wind
And when we rise to shut the window

Staring outward in that moment we
Have not yet realized has woken us,
The hard shadow in the moonlit sky already
Edged with the skitter and curl they’ll make

In November’s brown doldrums
Crossing the street with a weightless curse, never to come back.

from Vanishing Tracks