I have to write something else today, so this Friday’s post is an extract from a recent essay on poetry pamphlets in Poetry Review — with thanks to editor Wayne Holloway-Smith for suggesting I write it.
I once ran a pamphlet press — called, with a sort of sincere irony, Landfill. I had previously worked the nightshift at Anglia AutoTrader magazine, captioning thumbnails of cars, so had a basic knowledge of the pirated publishing software I acquired. But otherwise, I didn’t know much about book design. The simple A6 template I adopted came from talking with a local printer about how to produce single poetic sequences as a clean, tough, thin and cheap fold of paper. What people liked about these plain little books, when they saw and held them, was that they were little; appealing both to eye and hand. I’m lucky enough to be able to quote someone else’s appreciative description: “Staples and bright white wove, meringuey and crisped to the corners, fat bonny 12-point text bang in the middle of the page like visits to the newsagent to buy this term’s new A4 and multi-coloured divider” (Christina McLeish).
I like this association of poetry with the excitement of new stationery. Each Landfill pamphlet was intended to feel like its own completed notebook; in the case of the title McLeish is describing, R.F. Langley’s Twine (2004), each page held one nineteen-line stanza. The print runs weren’t so limited as to be vanishingly exclusive: a couple of hundred each time. But the littleness, I think, created a sense of intimacy, as though you had been given a handwritten copy, as in the days of Shakespeare circulating (to quote a contemporary) “his sugared sonnets among his private friends”.
Sugared sonnets make for social networks: the circulation of most pamphlets is by nature a personal business. Chain bookshops rarely stock publications lacking a legible spine, and similarly find the profit margin on the average pamphlet hard to see (that alternative term, “chapbook”, is etymologically related to “cheap”). So the majority are sold direct, either at readings or by post. Online baskets have made this more anonymous than it used to be: Paypal, despite its name, does not require you to be pals. Neither did pre-digital commerce — but when I think of buying poetry by cheque, what I remember is writing out small sums longhand and paperclipping the signed sheet to a scribbled friendly note requesting the goods.
You can read the whole piece here (or in a copy of the excellent new Poetry Review): https://poetrysociety.org.uk/magic-papers/