by John Dorsey

AT LEAD GRAFFITI we have been using the meander book format for a while as part of a design & print workshop experience. We were interested in experimenting with it to produce a more formal piece. As a collaboration, Ohio poet John Dorsey stepped up and wrote these twelve poems as a collection of experiences and events surrounding an abandoned railroad car in the woods near where he grew up.

THESE JOHN DORSEY’S POEMS are about memories and echoes of the past. In keeping with that idea, the title of each poem, which is simply its number in the sequence, is printed as a large, ghostly white figure underlying the words.

John Dorsey is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw’s Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Leaves of Ass (Unadorned Press, 2011), Street Maps for Lost Souls (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2012), and White Girl Problems: Poems & Stories (NightBallet Press, 2012). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Production notes

Edition : 125 books, signed by John Dorsey and numbered, printed and bound in 2013

• Deluxe edition (SOLD OUT) numbered 1 through 12 and signed by John Dorsey, each enclosed in a custom clamshell box and accompanied by the type metal slug used to print the corresponding first line of one of the 12 poems

• Standard edition (AVAILABLE), numbered 13 through 125 and signed by John Dorsey

Size : 14 pages, 4.25" x 5.25" overall

Binding : Bound by hand in a meander book format

• Cover boards wrapped outside in boxcar-patterned paste paper, wrapped inside in Canson Mi Tientes dark gray, an attached letterpress-printed title label, and a French 100# Construction cover spine with letterpress-printed title

• Text block printed on text-weight white Groove paper

• Pages include title and colophon

Production  :

• Main text cast on an Intertype C4 linecaster in 14 point Vogue, with handset Clarendon wood type numbers

• Printed slowly & patiently via letterpress in grey, rust and white inks, on a Vandercook Universal III and Vandercook SP15