Okay, after almost three months (not solid...lots of lapses), I've finished printing the eight poems that will make up this little hand-printed chapbook. I still have to make the title & copyright pages, a print of some kind, covers, bind them, so the books will not be completed for a while. Still, I feel like I'm over the hump on this. The printing, done on my Superior Ace Rotary Press with hand-set rubber type, is primitive. Sometimes the poem is tilted, sometimes a few words are too dark, the ink blotted. A few pages have small smudges or offsetting of lines from other poems. Think of it as That Outsider Charm. As much work as this has been, it feels good to be physically printing my own poems, a page at a time. So analog.
A stroke of luck: someone at work left a bunch of nice paper and office supplies on the "free table": stuff they'd bought themselves (not state property). A ream of yellow printer paper, a ream of yellow cover stock, another ream of a thick cream cover stock with tiny colored flecks or threads in it, plus an unopened package of clasp mailing envelops, and a box of file folders. All good stuff I can use for this or other projects. Needless to say, I grabbed it. I might use that fancy cream stock for the art print on this book. This stuff had my name all over it (well, not literally...)
