Blog | Expedition Press

Expedition’s Blog

A compendium of projects, process notes, technical reference, and personal anecdote: welcome to Expedition's blog. These are stories about the things we make and what we think about while making them.

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You are not you for long: Terrance Hayes poetry notecard

What good's a collaboration if I only share what I feel sure of? I took a deep breath and sent off both excerpts and got a resounding response from the entire SAL staff: You are not you for long. And goodness we aren't, are we?

Making “Instructions on Not Giving Up” by Ada Limón

This poem gets me every time, especially this time of year, especially this line: “Patient, plodding, a green skin / growing over whatever winter did to us,” — I feel a welling up of all the grief I carry, and as I automatically try to choke it back the poem opens me up further with that “strange idea of continuous living.”

On Noticing Love & Studying It: Ross Gay poetry notecard

This line is an act of noticing itself. It's not a demand, nor a command. It feels like an invitation and one that I can say yes to no matter how bad or hardhearted I feel. I can notice. And I can study what I notice. Choosing to notice love leads me back to the actual feeling of love.

Dreams young & old: Pablo Neruda poetry broadside

I feel this poem speaks from a young and an old place at the same time and I love how it holds the two together. Unapologetically. It reminds me how we are always ourselves, holding our pain and joy, our knowing and unknowing.

Simple & unrelenting: “We Love What We Have” by Mosab Abu Toha

Mosab's poetry goes beyond recognition. It catapults us into actual feelings which is why it's uncomfortable and important to read. And it does this while holding fierce love.

Releasing “Apenimonodan” small print by Margaret Noodin

During the final steps of finishing this print — sorting and counting comp copies, archives, inventory — I found myself setting another and yet another aside, into a gift pile that accrues regularly on one corner of my work table.

Finding strange comfort: Victoria Chang poetry notecard

I find a strange comfort in these lines even though I really don't know what they mean. This is what I love about poetry—it eases my need to know and cuts great swathes through my thinking.

Graveside poetry & pie: Late Fragment by Raymond Carver

Never did I imagine myself more than a decade later, standing in front of Raymond Carver's grave on his birthday, reading this poem to his loved ones at their annual pie and poetry gathering in his honor.

Letterpress United: No to War

“What we want to emphasize with this action is the presence of a real community that can try to respond, with a voice at the same time unique and plural, in a united way to the problems that society presents us, demonstrating our existence and our point of view in a clear and understandable way. We want to make our voice heard clearly on the collective theme of freedom of expression and the rejection of war.”

Making “Choreography of Ruin” by Ellen Bass

All the while the feeling of it soothed me. The quiet potatoes and the wind rubbing the trees leant a calm recognition of the present ruin we’re in. I needed those words.

Poetry Unbound & On Being

“immerse yourself in a single poem ... anchor your week … to the everyday poetry of your life …” I felt a thrill roll through me, a mirror held up at once.

Making “tó” by Sherwin Bitsui

“I don't know if this is relevant but the four sacred colors in Navajo are blue, yellow, jet, and white.”

Embracing Grief

What I’m most grateful for about the losses I’ve experienced in my life is their effect of making me suddenly, unexpectedly, excruciatingly present. The summer my older brother died I was painting a friend’s 2-story 4-bedroom house a soft pale yellow.

June Jordan by Sabina Smith

When I first read June Jordan’s “Poem about My Rights,” it was the first day of spring break. I was sitting at a coffee shop next to Expedition Press with my friend. We saw Myrna and she invited us over. On her wall in the shop there was a copy of the poem tacked up. I still can’t fully describe how powerful it felt, so full of emotion and honestly, I’d never read anything more mesmerizing.

On Edge

Recently I was interviewed by a 13 yr old who asked me what the hardest part of my job is. “Time!” I said immediately. “Good lord, time management. Knowing what to prioritize when.” A week prior a journalist asked me about my relationship to time as if I knew some secret about detaching from the fast-paced pressures of the digital

Building an Art Show

A year ago, at a windy roadside stop in South Dakota with a couple flickering bars of reception, I checked my email. There was a message from the manager of a gallery in downtown Seattle. She was wondering whether I wanted to join next year?

Making Sweet Darkness

I first read the poem “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte on a Friday, at the end of one of the worst weeks of my life. Husband demanding separation, step daughter screaming, mother gone missing.

On Propaganda & Personalizing

I watched the election results come in with increasing sickness. I went to bed early and woke up numb. The rollercoaster ride since recalls the early days after my brother died: anger, shock, despair, and overall a grand penetrating sense of pure disbelief.