When I teach beginning letterpress at SFCB, I start the class off by asking everyone why they want to learn to print. Many are graphic designers wanting to get their hands dirty by doing non-computer typographic work. But occasionally I get a student like Kim who has no type design background but wants to print for other reasons. Kim learned letterpress printing in order to participate in the Guerilla Poetics Project — a group dedicated to propaging a love of poetry. They letterpress print small (4-1/4″ x 5-1/2″) poetry broadsides that they then insert (smuggle is their term) into books in bookstores & libraries, to be found and enjoyed by the unsuspecting reader. (They encourage you to report finds to their website.)
Last Sunday I gave Kim a private lesson, teaching her the ins and outs of a floor model platen press. Since her first class with me on the tabletop press, she’s taken more letterpress classes and on her own hand-set and printed a small poetry broadside for the Obama inauguration. She brought her broadside to show me along with some other examples, and we spent a lovely morning printing.
Do check out their website… I particularly like the poem and broadside below (the geometry of relationship on the rocks by Justin Barrett).
