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| photo credit: Brian Dedora |
Look at any micro-press that publishes poetry and you
will find behind the production of those books a poet, or perhaps two. This
isn’t incredibly interesting because it is already known—it’s obvious. It is
also obvious that what a poet chooses to publish through their micro-press
agrees and excites their own sense of poetics, harmonizes with their personal
taste, or from time to time may challenge their set palette in an invigorating
way. But, what is less obvious is just how succinctly a micro-press’s
publications express the publisher’s own practice as poet—an aesthetic
translation, or extension of that poet’s own work. This is quite remarkable.
There is something uncanny and unconscious about this kind of spreading,
something autonomous and slightly mystical working away beneath the sum of
individual decisions.
It is not only a spreading outward, but also a
gathering-in. As many or most publications produced by a micro-press (or any
press, for that matter) are not generally authored by the publisher, this means
that other writers have submitted or accepted solicitation, and in doing so
have placed their work in the arena of the publisher’s poetic practice, though
possibly and often likely the intention of the one being published is simply to be published. Whatever the degree of
intention, the work is left with the publisher-poet and it will not be quite the same when, eventually, it is
published. Of course, the content received by the publisher will remain the
same, save for slight edits (ideally articulated in an open correspondence,)
but how the work is presented greatly alters the experience of it. This
requires a trust on both ends, a trust which should accompany the letting go of one’s work into the hands and
mind of a publisher and a trust which should
accompany the receiving of that work by the publisher.
Simulacrum Press, for me, is the excitement of being
led to such knowledge in an incredibly intimate way. Each work accepted is a
risk. An enormous amount of thought and decision goes into each publication,
but in the end it is an element of chance which determines how successful a
publication is. It cannot be controlled for all the thought and intuition given
them. And by success I am not speaking about sales. I am speaking about the
object that sings. The satisfaction of a harmony between design and content—the
compliment.
It is easy to become pessimistic as the publisher of a
micro-press. It is not a business that ends in money. It is difficult to even
think of it as a business considering the minute scale of the audience and the
fact that most individuals think nothing of buying all sorts of junk daily, but
stop and think in the most serious manner when considering whether they should
purchase an inexpensive book or pamphlet. That in and of itself sounds incredibly
bitter, but is simply a fact—not a glass
half full or half empty, but a looking up through the bottom of the glass
that you are attempting to maneuver beneath.
But, it always comes down to the making. The latest
publication from Simulacrum is Kyle Flemmer’s Correctional Sonnets (for Catherine Vidler) and it is the perfect
example of that risk in making and choosing around a poet’s work. I wanted
something clean and cold to relate to penitentiaries suggested by the word Correctional which is further suggested
by the bars of each sonnet. This is why I used metal to bind it. The chapbook
comes in a rough brown paper wrapping so as to faintly suggest the envelope in
which one’s possessions are stored when one is serving time. Whether or not the
motive for these decisions comes through, they manage to succeed in creating a
perfectly balanced object.
Though I am publishing less than the last couple years
due to the fact that there is a new child in the home and the job is eating both my time and will I’m
excited to get working on the publications lined up for this year precisely
because of the challenges they promise as works which deserve a great deal of
attention. Next up from Simulacrum is a chapbook by Hiromi Suzuki, a wonderful
Japanese concrete poet whose works can differ greatly, but which are always
great. The work she has trusted me with are poems written with typewriter.
Despite the fact that they hardly resemble her journal/collage work or her
digital work with gifs, they carry the same elusive quality which keeps the
reader always half in the shadows, half in the light.
Sacha Archer lives in
Burlington, Ontario with his wife and two daughters. He is the editor of
Simulacrum Press (simulacrumpress.ca). His work has been published in journals
such as ARC, filling Station, Matrix, Nöd, Politics/Letters
Live, Utsanga, Otoliths, Anti-lang, Futures Trading, Timglaset
and Touch the Donkey. Archer has two full-length collections of poetry, Detour
(gradient books, 2017) and Zoning Cycle (Simulacrum Press, 2017). Some
of his recent chapbooks are Inkwells: An Event Poem (Noir:Z, 2019), TSK oomph
(Inspiritus Press, 2018), Contemporary Meat (The Blasted Tree, 2018) and
three forthcoming: Houses (no press), Framing Poems and Mother’s Milk
(Timglaset). His visual poetry has been exhibited in the USA, Italy, and
Canada. Find him on Facebook and Instagram @sachaarcher.
