We believe that poetry provides direct access to our deepest interiors and we want people to know themselves. We make language seen and felt: able to be experienced, held, and remembered. To this end we produce art on paper with letters. We fight to make space for the imagination in our everyday visual environment.
Black lives matter. We are working to embed antiracist practices in every aspect of our own (white) lives. This is ongoing work. We know poetry helps. We know imagination is crucial to freedom. We are working now to be explicit about how these things connect and we are re-thinking how we talk about what we do and why. Intention does not equal impact. We are after impact.
For starters, BIPOC authors and community members get priority access to our resources. We prioritize words by Black people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, young people, and women. We seek out and collaborate with authors of different backgrounds and experiences then our own in order to bridge gaps, draw communities together, and illuminate the darkest places we all hurt from, grow through, and connect to. In our teaching, community events, and free service offerings we prioritize local BIPOC communities, especially youth. We want to put the editorial and production power we have in the hands of those most impacted by systemic racism and social injustice.
We believe that change happens one human heart at a time. What happens small will happen big. We want people to gain a deeper understanding of their own hearts so that they can learn to allow and do the same for others. We believe poetry is essential to this process. It aids self-knowledge with sharp blows to the head and speaks from the edge of all that can’t be said. We want to live in a world every day more awake, more alive, more equitable, and more just.
As poetry distills language to its most essential, our typography aims to create a singular, striking reading experience. In all design deliberations, we begin and end with the text. We are deeply committed to the craft of letterpress printing because of its capacity to communicate and propagate things that need to be read in an immediate, tangible, beautiful way. We support precision of language with precision of form, from individual letters to book-length texts, from pocket-sized prints to wall-sized paintings.
We conduct business on the basis of warm, real, and respectful human relationships. Our marketing strategy is threefold: to be genuine, to give freely, and to cross-promote. We live and work in community. Our shop is a home for writers, readers, thinkers, and poets. For authors, editors, publishers, booksellers, and overcommitted literary types of every stripe. For kids after school. For grandparents and neighbors and teachers and artists and engineers. For all who have something to say and struggle with how to say it. We help distill and distribute deeply felt words.
We source our materials as close to home as possible. We shop at the hardware store across the street, we walk to the local post office. We are committed to reducing our impact on the environment and so we make things that last. We buy quality materials and we allow the time for quality craftsmanship. We reuse and recycle and rethink our practices regularly. We work toward sustainable systems for our earth and our bodies. We are committed to education and mentorship and we say yes to people who show up and want to learn, especially young people. We operate within, and seek to expand, a culture of service and gratitude.
Thank you, dear reader, thank you. We love what we do.