HAIKU MEANDER BOOK: creative letterpress
Write a poem. Set it in type. Print a book you made by hand.
⬆ The image above is the result of a test run we did for our Haiku Meander Book workshop.
In one, two, or three days, you’ll write your own haiku and print them as a hard-cover letterpress book. No writing or printing experience is required. Most workshops offer an experience. This one offfers an experience at writing, an experience at bookmaking a quite unique no-wew, no-blue binding, and 3 physical copies of your results.
Our most popular workshop, the Meander Book, now focuses on poetry. Poet-in-residence Deborah Arnold, along with Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols of Lead Graffiti, will guide you as you collaborate to connect haiku, letterpress, and bookmaking.
What you’ll do
Write. Work in the traditional 5-7-5 haiku form and contribute to Allen Ginsberg’s American Sentence: 17 syllables in a single line.
Set type. Hand set your poem in wood and metal type. You design one of the book’s 14 pages yourself using type, ornaments, borders, and spacing.
Print. Print the covers on our hand-cranked Vandercook SP15 and the text on an automatic Vandercook Universal III.
Bind. Fold and tear a single sheet into an accordion book with a wrapped hard cover. No sewing and no gluing.
What you take home
One copy of the finished hard-cover book
Enough print sheets and components to make 2 more books.
Meander books from our workshops are deposited at the Rare Book Collection of the Library of Congress and Special Collections at the University of Delaware, which you can add to your résumé.
Details
Length & Price: 1 day $150 • 2 days $250,• 3 days $325
Group size: 6 - 14 people
Ages: 15 and up
Hours: up to 7 hours a day with pizza lunch and snacks included
Materials: all tools and materials provided.
Before you come: wear comfortable shoes and clothes you don’t mind getting ink on. The studio is not air-conditioned. Bring a notebook, a camera, and your questions.
Below are some of the more than 70 meander books produced since 2011 in Lead Graffiti workshops held by Rare Books at the Library of Congress and Special Collections at the University of Delaware.
Not just for workshops, this meander ook format also makes a carefully crafted fine press book. Ohio poet John Dorsey wrote 12 short poems specifically for this Lead Graffiti book, produced in an edition of 125 signed and numbered copies, plus 12 deluxe copies, each enclosed in a clamshell box.
Below is Chesapeake Meander, a collaborative book by poet Deborah Arnold and designer / letterpress printer Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti. Spreads containing Arnold’s poetry are sewn into each valley of the meander book. The book's main text block is a map of the upper Chesapeake Bay.
