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September 2020/
Designing and producing the poetry pamphlets
I've really enjoyed designing the pamphlets. It’s been an amazing project working with poet and publisher Jenny Lewis and all the wonderful poets.
See more the about the poetry and the poets on the website.
Poet’s House Pamphlets
Thank you to a new publisher – Dithering Chaps – for writing such a lovely review of the latest of the Poet’s House Pamphlets Ravenser Odd – a poem by Michael Daniels.
'As Dithering Chaps begins to get to grips with the challenges of publishing our ‘carefully-crafted chapbooks’ - we took delivery of a promotional banner this week and that’s our strapline! - we are always on the look-out for formats and fonts that stand out from the crowd.
A friend passed us a copy of a pamphlet by Michael Daniels called ‘Ravenser Odd’ and we were immediately struck by how tactile it felt in the hand.
(The fact that it was written in terza rima, had clever little marginal subtitles and avian icons to signpost developing themes added to our intrigue and pulled us into the text…)
It’s from Poet’s House Pamphlets, the brainchild of poet Jenny Lewis and designer Frances Kiernan, whose ethos is “to publish the poems of a small selection of poets over the age of 40 whose work has reached, or surpassed, the standard of many other published and prizewinning poets”. Its cover design is by Frances, a perfect choice due to her artistic focus on the intersection between language, text and landscape. Her rendering of the spit of mud called Ravenser Odd is both bird’s bill and intimation of a question-mark. We were hooked.
And that is something for us, as newbie publishers, to aim for. When we say 'carefully crafted' we too are talking about giving each chapbook a look and feel that is tailored to the individual creative content: a work of art, the words marrying the form to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. ' www.ditheringchaps.com
Planting Words at Kew Gardens
In the spring of 2011, I invited poet Jenny Lewis to work with me on a community project at Kew Gardens in conjunction with Kew Palace which we called 'Planting Words' to plant a ‘poetry garden’ round the Temple of the Imagination at Kew Gardens.
We worked with students from around the borough, first to explore the history and culture of Kew Palace and then to create books, poems and art works around the experience. This included a wonderful session in which we each had a ‘wish for the world’ and then created designs and lettering by embossing the words onto thin copper.
We each decorated a terracotta pot and planted a seed in it which carried our ‘wish for the world’. The students took home the pots to look after them until they germinated when we gathered together again and planted them out. At the same time, we attached the copper band, carrying our words and pictures, around the bottom of the Temple. In he summer when the flowers were in full bloom we met again with their families and had a picnic celebrating their talents..
This was an extraordinary project and one that we would love to repeat with other groups.
September 2020/
Designing and producing the poetry pamphlets
I've really enjoyed designing the pamphlets. It’s been an amazing project working with poet and publisher Jenny Lewis and all the wonderful poets.
See more the about the poetry and the poets on the website.
Poet’s House Pamphlets
Thank you to a new publisher – Dithering Chaps – for writing such a lovely review of the latest of the Poet’s House Pamphlets Ravenser Odd – a poem by Michael Daniels.
'As Dithering Chaps begins to get to grips with the challenges of publishing our ‘carefully-crafted chapbooks’ - we took delivery of a promotional banner this week and that’s our strapline! - we are always on the look-out for formats and fonts that stand out from the crowd.
A friend passed us a copy of a pamphlet by Michael Daniels called ‘Ravenser Odd’ and we were immediately struck by how tactile it felt in the hand.
(The fact that it was written in terza rima, had clever little marginal subtitles and avian icons to signpost developing themes added to our intrigue and pulled us into the text…)
It’s from Poet’s House Pamphlets, the brainchild of poet Jenny Lewis and designer Frances Kiernan, whose ethos is “to publish the poems of a small selection of poets over the age of 40 whose work has reached, or surpassed, the standard of many other published and prizewinning poets”. Its cover design is by Frances, a perfect choice due to her artistic focus on the intersection between language, text and landscape. Her rendering of the spit of mud called Ravenser Odd is both bird’s bill and intimation of a question-mark. We were hooked.
And that is something for us, as newbie publishers, to aim for. When we say 'carefully crafted' we too are talking about giving each chapbook a look and feel that is tailored to the individual creative content: a work of art, the words marrying the form to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. ' www.ditheringchaps.com
Planting Words at Kew Gardens
In the spring of 2011, I invited poet Jenny Lewis to work with me on a community project at Kew Gardens in conjunction with Kew Palace which we called 'Planting Words' to plant a ‘poetry garden’ round the Temple of the Imagination at Kew Gardens.
We worked with students from around the borough, first to explore the history and culture of Kew Palace and then to create books, poems and art works around the experience. This included a wonderful session in which we each had a ‘wish for the world’ and then created designs and lettering by embossing the words onto thin copper.
We each decorated a terracotta pot and planted a seed in it which carried our ‘wish for the world’. The students took home the pots to look after them until they germinated when we gathered together again and planted them out. At the same time, we attached the copper band, carrying our words and pictures, around the bottom of the Temple. In he summer when the flowers were in full bloom we met again with their families and had a picnic celebrating their talents..
This was an extraordinary project and one that we would love to repeat with other groups.