We believe in equal access to wild places within and without for all people, and the safe opportunity to explore them. We believe that poetry provides direct access to our deepest interiors and so we work to increase exposure to it. We make language seen and felt: able to be experienced, held, and remembered. To this end we produce art, books, broadsides, and all manner of printed propaganda. We fight to make space for the imagination in our everyday visual environment.
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 and more alive.
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 prioritize marginalized voices: women, people of color, young people, old people, indigenous people, queer people. We seek out and collaborate with poets of different backgrounds and experiences than our own in order to bridge gaps, draw communities together, and illuminate the darkest places we all hurt from, grow through, and connect to. We work across nationalities, we cross borders regularly, and we invite global input and inspiration.
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.