RANDOM ORGANIZATION

A somewhat random list of organizations I support:

• American Print History Association: www.printinghistory.org/index.html

• Association of Writers and Writing Programs: www.awpwriter.org/

• College Art Association: www.collegeart.org/

• College Book Art Association: www.collegebookart.org/

• Fine Press Book Association: www.fpba.com/

• Modern Language Association: http://www.mla.org/

• Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing: www.sharpweb.org/

• Society of Typographic Afficianodos: www.typesociety.org/

• Type Director’s Club: www.tdc.org/tdc/

• Typophile: www.typophile.com/

I bought half a dozen used bookcases, and finished unpacking my library last week. I weeded out a box of books that I basically wanted to donate, and started looking around online for a used bookstore or charitable organization in the area that might be interested. Most of the reviews I read said that Austin’s used bookstores had gone under, unable to compete with online sales. None of them sounded very interesting, so I just drove to one on my way to the barbershop. While they ‘appraised’ the items in my box I took a look around and was amazed to find about a dozen excellent titles at very reasonable prices. Here’s what I found:

Augustine, Jane. Lit by the Earth’s Dark Blood (Mt. Horeb, Perishable Press Limited) 1977

Bachaus, Theodore. Private Presses of San Serriffe (San Serriffe, San Serriffe Publishing Company) 1980

Blackburn, Paul. The Omitted Journals (Mt. Horeb, Perishable Press Limited) 1983

Berssenbrugge, Mei-Mei. Mizu (Tucson, Chax Press) 1990

Cutler, Leland. Once Upon a Time (San Francisco, printed by John Henry Nash) 1934

Hall, Walter. Spider Poems (Madison, Perishable Press Limited) 1967

Hejinian, Lyn and Kit Robinson. Individuals (Tucson, Chax Press) 1988

Mackey, Nathaniel. Outlantish parts 4-11 (Tucson, Chax Press) 1992

Metcalf, Paul. Golden Delicious (Tucson, Chax Press) 1985

Schwerner, Armand. The Tablets I-VIII (West Branch, Cummington Press) 1968

When I got to the register, the woman working at the counter asked if I was interested in poetry. I told her I was, and she informed me that she used to live at the Peace Eye Bookstore on the Lower East Side. She went on to say that Ed Sanders let her live there for free in exchange for work on the periodical Fuck You. She worked mimeo by day, and delivered copies of the magazine at night for about year, then moved upstate to a town called Woodstock shortly before the big concert. Her son, now 40, was born on the night of the first moonwalk.

MALA MADRE

When I moved to Texas two weeks ago, I bought a spider plant from a woman who was moving to South America. She told me that in Spanish, the spider plant is called ‘mala madre’ or, ‘the bad mother’ because ‘she throws her babies over the edge of the planting pot.’

Getting ready for my new job, I thought I would put together a checklist to serve as a resource for students interested in pursuing careers in literary publishing. It includes books on: the history of the book; new media; typography; bibliography; textual editing; book design and a splash of literary/critical theory. A poetics of the book if you will. It is not exhaustive, just one ‘bad mother’ that will invariably allow students to branch out, finding their own research interests and affinities. Sink or swim, it does not contain: individual essays; periodicals; correspondences; crafty how-to books; biographies; monographs; autobiographies; coffee table books; computer handbooks; individual bibliographies, etc. Most of these titles are extremely contemporary, often in print, and available through: http://used.addall.com/

I'm posting this here with the hope that readers will contribute their own favorite reads to the comments box or email me with their elaborations and suggestions. Of course, we only had the printed book to study the printed book for about 500 years, but that's all changed now, so hopefully I'll update this website with online resources that cover the same territory soon. Thanks for checking this out! KS

Adobe Systems Inc. Adobe Type Library Reference Book (2007)

Allen, Alastair & Joan Hoverstadt. The History of Printed Scraps (1990)

Badaracco, Claire Hoertz. Trading Words: Poetry, Typography, and Illustrated Books in the Modern Literary Economy (1995)

Bains, Phil. Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 (2006)

Ballou, Ellen B. The Building of the House: Houghton Mifflin's Formative Years (1970)

Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies (1994)

Blackwell, Lewis. Twentieth Century Type (2004)

Bloch, R. Howard & Carla Hesse (eds.). Future Libraries (1995)

Blumenthal, Joseph. The Printed Book in America (1989)

Bolter, Jay. Remediation: Understanding New Media (2000)

Bornstein, George (ed.). Representing Modernist Texts (1991)

Bowers, Fredson. Principles of Bibliographical Description (1994)

Bright, Betty. No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America 1960-1980 (2005)

Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style (2004)

Burke, Clifford. Printing Poetry (1980)

Burnhill, Peter. Type Spaces: In-House Norms in the Typography of Aldus Manutius (2003)

Carter, John. ABC for Book Collectors (2004)

Carter, John and Percy H. Muir, eds. Printing and the Mind of Man: A Descriptive Catalogue Illustrating the Impact of Print on the Evolution of Western Civilization During Five Centuries (1967)

Carter, Harry. Perspectives on American Book History: Artifacts and Commentary (2002)

Carter, Harry. A View of Early Typography (2002)

Castleman, Riva. A Century of Artists' Books (1994)

Cave, Roderick. The Private Press (1983)

Celant, Germano. Book as Artwork (1972)

Chappell, Warren. A Short History of the Printed Word (1999)

Charvat, William. Literary Publishing in America, 1790-1850 (1993)

Cheng, Karen. Designing Type (2006)

Clay, Steve and Jerome Rothenberg (eds.). A Book of the Book (1999)

Clay, Steve and Rodney Philips (eds.). A Secret Location on the Lower East Side (1998)

Compton, Susan. Russian Avant-Garde Books 1917-34 (1993)

Compton, Susan, The World Backwards: Russian Futurist Books 1912-16 (1978)

Courtney, Cathy. Facing the Page: British Artists' Books: A Survey 1983-1993 (1993)

Courtney, Cathy. Speaking of Book Art (1999)

Cutts, Simon. Some Forms of Availability (2007)

Dana, Robert. Against the Grain: Interviews with Maverick American Publishers (1986)

Davis, Kenneth C. Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America (1984)

de Hamel, Christopher. The Book: A History of the Bible (2001)

Denman, Frank. The Shaping of our Alphabet: A Study of Changing Type Styles (1955)

Dennison, Sally. Alternative Literary Publishing: Five Modern Histories (1984)

De Vinne, Theodore Low. The Practice of Typography: Plain Printing Types (1902)

Dowding, Geoffrey. The History of Printing Types: An Illustrated Summary of the Main Stages in the Development of Type Design from 1440 up to the Present Day (1998)

Drew, Ned & Paul Sternberger. By Its Cover: Modern American Book Cover Design (2005)

Drucker, Johanna. Alphabetic Labyrinth (1999)

Drucker, Johanna. The Century of Artists’ Books (2004)

Drucker, Johanna. Figuring the Word (1998)

Drucker, Johanna. The Visible Word (1997)

Drucker, Johanna & Emily McVarish. Graphic Design History (2008)

Duncan, Harry. Doors of Perception (1987)

Dworkin, Craig. Reading the Illegible (2003)

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. (1983) A one-volume abridgement of Eisenstein's two-volume The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979)

Exman, Eugene. The House of Harper: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Publishing (1967)

Everson, William. On Printing (1992)

Febvre, Lucien and Henri-Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800 (1976)

Fine, Ruth. Printer’s Choice (1983)

Finkelstein, David, and Alistair McCleery. An Introduction to Book History (2005)

Franklin, Collin. The Private Press (1969)

Funkhouser, C.T. Prehistoric Digital Poetry (2007)

Gallup, Donald. On Contemporary Bibliography (1970)

Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints (1995)

Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography (1995)

Gates, David. Lettering for Reproduction (1969)

Genette, Gerard. Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation (1997)

Gill, Eric. An Essay on Typography (1993)

Gitelman, Lisa. Scripts, Groves and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era (1999)

Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. The Encyclopedia of the Book (1996)

Gray, Nicolete. Nineteenth Century Ornamented Typefaces, with a Chapter on Ornamented Types in America by Ray Nash (1976)

Greco, Albert. The Book Publishing Industry (2005)

Griffith, Penny & Alan Loney. A Book in Hand (2000)

Gross, Gerald (ed.). Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know about What Editors Do (1994)

Germano, William. Getting it Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else About Serious Books (2008)

Hall, David D. (ed.). A History of the Book in America (2007)

Harris, Elizabeth. The Fat and the Lean: American Wood Type in the 19th Century (1983)

Havelock, Eric. The Muse Learns To Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present (1988)

Hawkins, Ann R. (ed.). Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism and Book History (2006)

Hayles, Katherine. Electronic Literature (2008)

Hayles, Katherine. Writing Machines (2002)

Helsinger, K. Poetry and the Pre-Raphaelite Arts: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris (2008)

Higgins, Dick. A Dialectic of Centuries: Notes Towards a Theory of the New Arts (1978)

Higgins, Dick. Modernism Since Postmodernism: Essays on Intermedia (1997)

Hollis, Richard. Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965 (2006)

Howsam, Leslie. Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture (2006)

Hubert, Renée & Judd. The Cutting Edge of Reading: Artists' Books (1998)

Hochull, Jost. Detail in Typography (2008)

Huchull, Jost & Robin Kinross. Designing Books: Practice and Theory (2003)

Hunter, Dard. Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (1978)

Ivins, William. Prints and Visual Communication (1953)

James, Louis. Print and the People 1819-1951 (1978)

Jennett, Seaian. Pioneers in printing: Johann Gutenburg, William Caxton, William Caslon, John Baskerville, Alois Senefelder, Frederick Koenig, Ottmar Mergenthaler, Tolbert Lansto (1956)

Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry & A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopedia of Type Faces (2001)

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old Media and New Media Collide (2008)

Jobling, Paul. Graphic Design: Reproduction and Representation Since 1800 (1997)

Johnston, Alastair. Alphabets to Order (2000)

Johnston, Alastair. Ellipsis (2008)

Johnston, Alastair. Musing on the Vernacular (1988)

Johnston, Alastair & Steve Saxe. Nineteenth-Century American Type Designers and Engravers of Type (2009)

Jury, David. Letterpress: The Allure of the Handmade (2006)

Kelly, Rob Roy. American Wood Type 1828–1900 (1969)

Kinross, Robin. Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History (2004)

Kinross, Robin. Unjustified Texts (2002)

Kittler, Friedrich. Gramophone Film Typewriter (1999)

Kristeva, Julia. Language the Unknown (1989)

Klima, Stefan. Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature (1998)

Lange, Gerald. Printing Digital Type on the Hand-operated Flatbed Cylinder Press (2009)

Lawson, Alexander. Anatomy of a Typeface (2002)

Leborg, Christian. Visual Grammar (2006)

Lehmann-Haupt, Hellmut. The Book in America: A History of the Making and Selling of Books in the United States (1951)

Leonard, Charles. Paul Renner and Futura: The Effects of Culture, Technology, and Social Continuity on the Design of Type for Printing (2008)

Lewis, Gifford. The Yeats Sisters and the Cuala Press (1994)

Lewis, John. Printed Ephemera: The Changing Uses of Type and Letterforms in English

and American Printing (1962)

Lewis, John. Anatomy of Printing: The Influence of Art and History on Its Design (1970)

Loizeaux, Elizabeth Bergmann. Reimagining Textuality: Textual Studies in the Late Age of Print (2002)

Loney, Alan. Mediatio: The Printer Printed: Manifesto (2004)

Loney, Alan. The Printing of a Masterpiece (2008)

Lupton, Ellen. The ABC's of Bauhaus, The Bauhaus and Design Theory (2000)

Lupton, Ellen. Design it Yourself (2006)

Lupton, Ellen. Design Writing Research (1999)

Lupton, Ellen. Thinking with Type (2004)

Lyons, Joan (ed.). Artists Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook (1985)

Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading (1997)

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media (2002)

Martin, Henri-Jean. History and Power of Writing (1994)

Mays, J.C.C. Fredson Bowers and the Irish Wolfhound (2002)

McGann, Jerome. Black Riders: The Visible Language of Modernism (1993)

McGann, Jerome. A Critique of the Modern Textual Condition (1992)

McGann, Jerome. Radiant Textuality: Literature After the World Wide Web (2004)

McGann, Jerome. The Scholar’s Art: Literary Studies in a Managed World (2006)

McGann, Jerome. The Textual Condition (1991)

McGrew, Mac. American Metal Typefaces of the 20th Century (1996)

McKerrow, Ronald B. An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (1951)

McKenzie, D. F. Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (1986)

McLean, Ruari. How Typography Happens (2000)

McLean, Ruari. Manual of Typography (1980)

McLean, Ruari. Modern Book Design (1958)

McLuhan, Marshall. The Guttenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1965) 


McLuhan, Marshall. The Medium is the Message (1967)

McLuhan, Marshall. Mechanical Bride (1951)

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1994)

Melby, Julie (ed.). Splendid Pages (2003)

Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo. Vision in Motion (1947)

Morgan, Robert. Commentaries on the New Media Arts: Fluxus and Conceptual Art, Artists' Books, Correspondence Art, Audio and Video Art (1992)

Morison, Stanley. Letter Forms (2000)

Morison, Stanley. A Talley of Types (1973)

Murray, Simone. Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics (2004)

Noordzij, Gerrit. The Stroke: Theory of Writing (2005)

Pasternak, Anne. Creative Time: The Book (2008)

Philpot, Clive. Artist/Author: Contemporary Artists’ Books (1998)

Polk, Ralph W. The Practice of Printing (1952)

Potter, Norman. What is a Designer: Things, Places, Messages (2002)

Rafaeli, Ari. Book Typography (2005)

Renner, Paul. Color, Order and Harmony (1964)

Rota, Anthony. Apart from the Text (1998)

Rothenberg, Jerome and David Guss (eds.). The Book, Spiritual Instrument (1996)

Roylance, Dale. Graphic Americana: The Art and Technique of Printed Ephemera (1992)

Rummins, Richard-Gabriel. Printing on the Iron Handpress (1997)

Sampson, Henry. A History of Advertising from the Earliest Times (1874)

Schwartz, Hillel. The Culture of the Copy (1996)

Sheehan, Donald. This Was Publishing: A Chronicle of the Book Trade in the Gilded Age (1952)

Shepard, Leslie. The History of Street Literature (1973)

Shillingsburg, Peter. From Gutenberg to Google (2006)

Smeijers, Fred. Counterpunch (2010)

Smeijers, Fred. Type Now (2003)

Smith, William. Advertise: How? When? Where? (1863)

Spiekermann, Erik & E.M. Ginger. Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works (2003)

Steinberg, S. H. Five Hundred Years of Printing (1996)

Sullivan, James. On the Walls and In the Streets: American Poetry Broadsides from the 1960s (1997)

Tanselle, Thomas. A Rationale of Textual Criticism (1992)

Thomas, Isaiah. The History of Printing in America (1970)

Tracy, Walter. Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design (2003)

Tschichold, Jan. The New Typography (1998)

Turner, E. S. The Shocking History of Advertising! (1965)

Twyman, Michael. Printing 1770-1970: An Illustrated History of its Development and Uses in England (1998)

Twyman, Michael. The British Library Guide to Printing: History and Techniques (1999)

Updike, Daniel Berkeley. Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use (1980)

Warde, Beatrice. The Crystal Goblet: Sixteen Essays on Typography (1956)

Wershler-Henry, Darren. The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting (2007)

West, James L. W., III. American Authors and the Literary Marketplace since 1900 (1988)

Wilson, Adrian. The Design of Books (1974)

Wilson, Martha. Books as Art (1991)

Zapf, Hermann. Classical Typography in the Computer Age (1991)

Zapf, Hermann. Hermann Zapf and His Design Philosophy (1987)

WILL HAMLIN: MAY 18, 1918 - AUGUST 4, 2009

Will Hamlin was a dear friend and teacher when I was a student at Goddard College. Will inspired my lifelong interest in letterpress printing, the history of Black Mountain College, and the philosophy of progressive education. As a student, I found his course in 'esoteric literature' both difficult, and rewarding. I credit him with teaching me the value of thinking about thinking. One day, he was discussing an essay, or personal evaluation I wrote for his course, and he corrected my typos while reading the paper aloud to me upside down--that is, he was sitting across the desk from me, allowing me to read the paper right side up as he edited. I asked him 'Will, how is it that you can see my errors upside down better than I can see them right side up?' and he told me that during the Great Depression, he and his twin brother were only allowed one textbook per course, and that as a result, they would lay head to head on the couch, and take turns reading right side up. I'll miss you pal.

Driving home tonight from my first day on campus I watched the sun sinking into the horizon, a bright pink spotlight soaring up into the sky, and thought of him just hours before reading an email about his death thoughtfully forwarded to me from Jeremy Davies, also a former student of Will's. You can read his obituary here and read about his time at Black Mountain here.

HOW TO HOW NOT TO GET PUBLISHED

I just sent a rather abrupt note to a Ph.D. in psychology who sent me an unsolicited manuscript of poems:

Thanks but no thanks--you should really talk to someone about how to present a ms. to a publisher if you want your work to be read, i.e. don't treat your poetry as if it were
spam. I'm sure it deserves more.

Kyle

Harsh? I suppose, but I really meant the last line. I get a reasonable number of unsolicited manuscripts sent to the press, but I've never accepted one for publication. I've always kept a long list of writers I admire who I would like to ask for materials, and that keeps growing as my reading broadens and deepens. I suppose that is one of the qualities that puts Cuneiform in the 'private press' tradition. I consider myself conservative insofar as I prefer not to get more than a year ahead of the present in my publishing agenda, tho I must admit that due to changes in my geography and professional life outside of publishing, I now have a few books that authors and readers have been patiently anticipating. Personally, I don't think it fair that a publisher accept a manuscript that can't be brought into the public domain with integrity within a year of its acceptance, but again, that's a personal standard of efficiency and one that is more expedient than most publishers can realistically manage.

I dig prizes that result in publication when they are conducted honestly, but that sadly seems to be more the exception than the rule these days. With more books in circulation now than ever, it is particularly interesting to see how first books (in particular) get published and why.

When I edited the journal Kiosk with Gordon Hadfield and Sasha Steensen as a graduate student at the University at Buffalo, we would receive scores of submissions (not the same as 'contributions') from writers who had apparently all read the same Writers Market Guide or some sort of self-help book for aspiring writers in search of publication. The coverletters were a dead giveaway--they were all formatted exactly the same, and clearly printed by the author and distributed to dozens of editors of little magazines in one clean weekly trip to the post office. Just imagine what could be done with the same resources if one were to send their poems to friends and colleagues who actually wanted to engage with the work--is that not, in essence, what the mimeo revolution was all about? Kiosk worked basically the same way that Ed Sanders, LeRoi Jones, Larry Fagin, or any of the other maverick mimeo publishers distributed their work. We had a huge mailing list, mostly comprised of writers we liked who would get copies for free. A few libraries and interested individuals could order copies for five dollars, including shipping!

Before we became editors, back in 2001, the journal was essentially defunct. It was established some years earlier by another generation of graduate students, but eventually dried up as they finished school and left town. When presented with the opportunity, we seized the name and University funding that came with it, but decided that it would be a journal of 'poetry, poetics, and prose' and we would not publish fiction, as had the editors before us. Nevertheless, flocks of fiction writers who were obviously consulting antiquated editions of Writers Market sent us their short stories and excepts from their novels or memoirs, etc. It was clear that if they had read the journal (ordered a personal copy or borrowed one from the library) or at least checked out the submissions guidelines at the website and familiarized themselves with the content and objectives of the journal, they would have likely realized that their submission wasn't right for Kiosk before going through the hassle, and very real financial expense, of sending us their work through the post. Clearly, the writers are not at fault--they want to be read and they've even gone so far as to buy a book on the subject of getting published that was supposed to help them. The industry of self-help books for writers (and not writers) is form of predatory marketing, and not a story that needs to be elaborated on here.

As a publisher, there are a few things that I appreciate when receiving a manuscript from a writer whose work I haven't read before, so here's some free and unsolicited advice.

a) Check to see if the publisher accepts unsolicited materials, and if so, see if there are reading periods, and how the publisher would like the work formatted if there are instructions on the website or in print.

b) If there is no mention of submission guidelines, find a postal or email address (preferably the former) and send a brief letter of inquiry with no more than a paragraph about the manuscript and no more than a paragraph about yourself (no need to send headshots!). If you send snail mail, be sure to provide your email address and a SASE and let the publisher choose to reply by post or electronically.

c) In the letter of inquiry (don't send a full or partial ms. unless the publisher asks for it--attachments from strangers are suspect and wasted paper isn't environmentally conscious) begin by telling the publisher why you think your writing or art jives with the publisher's objectives or mission statement.

d) Read all of the books that publisher has brought into print even if you can't afford to purchase them (ask your public or private library to purchase copies--any publisher will appreciate that gesture) and discuss your relationship to those books and authors. I know this sounds like a lot of work (it is!), but if you take your work seriously (in the best way) it will begin to establish a relationship, and I feel strongly that behind every great book there is a sound relationship between the text (author) and object (publisher). As an aside, as a publisher, I make an effort to read every book an author has published prior to their Cuneiform book in order to familiarize myself with the history and development of their writing, and to make note of how their Cuneiform book will look on the shelf next to all of their other titles--not that I would make a deliberate attempt to replicate the aesthetic of their other books, but I do find it necessary and useful to identify the author's personal typographic habits and preferences, i.e. I would approach a typesetting a manuscript by Johanna Drucker differently from Robert Bringhurst knowing full well that they each uphold refined aesthetic and typographic preferences in their published works.

e) Publishers are like record labels. When I was trying to find my way into contemporary writing for the first time, I was a high school student browsing used bookstores in Providence on my bicycle with money I earned from clipping the neighbors' lawns. One day, for whatever reason, I was attracted to a book by Rae Armantrout published by Burning Deck. I had never read anything like it before (perhaps I had never read a book of poetry written after WWII before) and quickly began scooping up all of the half-price Burning Deck books I could find. Now I joke with Keith and Rosmarie that Burning Deck was my first curriculum in contemporary writing, and it was. I liked very much what they were publishing, the books were produced locally, and they had a distinct feeling, especially the ones printed letterpress at their home in Providence, or later from linotype in Warwick. Why do I dwell here? Only to say again that texts are often defined by their contexts, so finding the right company for your writing with a particular publisher who identifies with your writing and with whom you identify is of great importance--reminds me of the old question of how to be an individual in a community defined by individuals. In short, it is wise to refrain from sending your well-worked writing to a publisher who has never produced a book you cherish.

I usually refrain from rants and/or advice (yuck!) on this blog, but hopefully some of this will be of use to somebody. And naturally, there are tons of alternatives to seeking a publisher. Having dinner with a friend's mother the other night in Columbus, she told us (with great enthusiasm) all about her new manuscript. When someone asked who was going to publish it she took a deep breath and said: I never have much luck with publishers, I think I'm going to have to do it myself. Although I got the sense that she perceived of this confession as a last resort, ten degrees away from the 'glory' of being discovered by a big-time publisher complete with reading tours and fat royalty checks, I applaud her ambition, not only in the writing, but in taking the extra step to make the manuscript into a book, even if it never gets a review in the New York Times or a mention on Oprah. From Blake to William Morris to Ezra Pound, we can see that when self-publishing is done with integrity, it can be an extension of the art of writing, rather than, as the self-help world of poetry would like us to believe, a form of failure.