Maelstrom House News

And what, you ask, is Maelstrom House? I mean, besides an apt description of my apartment. So glad you asked.  It's my new publishing imprint I'm launching to produce literary artist's books, like the one I've just finished, Border & Frontier, with text by Carlos Schröder. Border & Frontier started out as a promise on a book to come, something that Carlos and I are working on, called The Body is As Solid As the Thought That Holds It In Place. This will be a collection of Carlos's poems, rather than just one of them like Border & Frontier, and in both English and Spanish. Carlos's "big book" will be a museum quality artist's book, unlike Border & Frontier, which is very nicely made, but not expensive.

This is the basic model of what I'd like to do with Maelstrom House: produce both museum-quality chapbooks in very limited editions, and larger editions of more affordable hand-made literary books. Eventually, I hope at least some of these will be letter press printed in my own shop, and that I'll also have moderately inexpensive paperback editions of the high-end artist's books, so the text will be available to more people. I'm not sure whether this will involve perfect binding or pamphlet binding, but we'll find out farther down the road.

There are several books in various stages right now, and at least one broadside as well. What I'm most concerned about is that this doesn't become just an outlet for my own writing or creativity, but that it becomes a vehicle for perhaps launching some people deserving of more attention than they've gotten, like Carlos. Happily, he got a little attention this weekend, at a reading at Takoma Park's Culture Shop, in Washington, DC. He was in great company, too, with (R to L) Merle Collins, Donna Denizé, Greta Ehrig, and Virginia Bell (not pictured) who organized the reading and emceed in addition to reading.

Carlos has a very matter-of-fact reading style that gives his poems more punch than a dramatic style might. Imagine the title poem of the collection delivered in a cool, offhand voice:

the body is as solid as the thought that holds it in place

the torturer knows this
and lets the victim know
that he can think of the body
as chapters in a book
independent from each other   yet connected

then tears the pages
one by one.

© Carlos Schröder, 1998

Hopefully this will give you an idea of why I think publishing Carlos's work is so important, and why I'm eager to put it into an artist's book format.  We've spent some time talking about what the book should look like, so this is definitely a collaborative effort.

I'll keep you posted with further developments, including the opening of a shop on Etsy.  In the meanwhile, check out the new photos on Flickr, and the slightly revamped website.

Into the Maelstrom!

Comments

[Rob]

That poem: holy moley. I mean to say, HOLY MOLEY.

Wow. Rob

[Lee]

Yer, brill eh? Not to mention chilling.