Tuesday, December 31, 2013

last day of the year

I have no idea what ought, or ought not, be said at such a time - having myself no interest or need in the business of so-called "celebrating" any day (xmas, new year, birthday etc) it remains, even after all this time, a problem for me to figure out what, for others, all the fuss is about - time takes no notice of these apparent markers, nor does the poem, nor does the book, nor does love, nor do the turtle-doves I feed in the mornings, always before I feed myself - 
         yet the quiet hiatus provided by the general social shut-down at this time does provide me with a bit of space - from printing and from organising CODEX 2014 - in which to think about how I'd like to proceed from now on - 
         at such times, I am usually tempted to make overt & all-too-definite pronouncements about what is or aint gonna emerge from this printery henceforth - but I'm too aware of the dangers of that - too many recantings in the past - 
         if anything now, an openness rather than the almost desperate & almost useless planning I have tried to do before - if only I can do this & achieve that, then all will be well etc etc etc  - 
         to make a book in the same way I make a poem - 
         to make a book in the same way I make a poem -
         to make a book in the same way I make a poem - 

you can see the problem

always, at the beginning, with no starting blocks or wall to push away from -

as a kid, swimming in the Hutt River 
to move off somewhere only 
to step into a pothole - 

nevertheless, may you all
have a great 2014



Thursday, December 26, 2013

reviving Hawk Press

over the years I have occasionally wished I had stuck to Hawk Press as my press name, but, as we know, life moves on, decisions get made, and one way & another we manage with things - in recent years, at the same time that writing has become more important to me rather than less, and printing has taken up more of my time & energy rather than less, I have found it harder & harder to either : get my work accepted by publishers; or : seeing the work come out after a publisher has accepted it, then failed to produce it, even up to three years after acceptance - it has been a frustrating four or five years for me in this regard, and of course it may be that my writing life is over, and I'm unable to produce what anyone wants to publish any more - it happens to people, and there's no basic reason why it shouldn't happen to me too - I have now pulled a number of texts from publishers who have held on to them for too long, and have stopped sending texts out to publishers altogether -

however, I have decided, now that I have ten unpublished works on file, to begin publishing them myself - in digitally printed editions of 100 copies @ $30 to $50 each - reviving the imprint of Hawk Press - and I'll sell them from this blog & from home - expect the first of these to show up on this blog in January 2014 - 

Electio will of course continue - more modestly than before -