Textualis Press, established in September 2014, publishes
limited-edition, hand-bound poetry books on high-quality paper.
D.S. Stymeist’s poems have
appeared in numerous magazines, including The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review, Steel Chisel, Ottawater,
and The Fiddlehead. His work
was featured as the Parliamentary Poet Laureate’s Poem of the Month (February
2015) and was short-listed for Vallum’s
2015 poetry prize. He teaches poetics, Renaissance drama, and aboriginal
literature at Carleton University. He grew
up as a resident of O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, is the editor
and founder of the micro-press, Textualis,
and is the
current vice-president of VERSe Ottawa.
His collection, The Bone Weir, is forthcoming with Frontenac House.
1 – When did Textualis Press first
start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started,
if at all? And what have you learned through the process?
Textualis
Press started in late 2014, and its goals haven’t changed much. Give it time. On
a practical level, I’ve learnt how to solicit, edit, manufacture, and
distribute small books. I’ve certainly learnt that a hell of a lot of labour
goes into making small books. While perhaps not strictly educational, I’ve also
met and gotten to know many local writers, artists, and readers through this
process; running a small press has certainly helped me become a fuller member
of the Ottawa arts scene.
2 – What first brought you to
publishing?
I saw that a
number of other small book publishers in my adopted community of Ottawa (above/ground,
Apt. 9) were producing chapbooks featuring the work of local writers and
deriving a lot of pleasure in the process.
I wanted to escape the stultifying atmosphere of academia, serve my local
community, bring new work to readers, and learn the craft of making small books.
Setting up a small press seemed like the best way to accomplish all of this.
The craft
aspect of small book publishing especially appealed to me. As a critic and
writer, I spend far too much time in my own head, which at times can be a very inhospitable
place. Book manufacture requires a special kind of manual labour, it requires
focus, precision of physical movement. Through the repetitive gestures involved
in the scoring of cover stock, the folding of paper, and the stitching together
of chapbooks with awl, needle, and waxed cord, one enters a more meditative
state. The conscious mind stops “thinking” as it becomes too involved with coordinating
movement. In a way, the small book maker becomes a small machine—this is a
peculiarly comforting thing to me. (I was born in Detroit, the birthplace of
assembly line manufacture, so perhaps mindless industry is in my blood.)
I also became
acutely aware that there were many fine poets in Ottawa who had very little
publishing exposure at the small press level. I felt that if I could help to
publicize and share their work, I should. Beyond providing immediate local
exposure, these kind of small press books can be valuable stepping stones to
larger projects and potentially enable access to trade presses and wider
readership. In other words, they can help empower emerging artists.
That being
said, the mandate of Textualis is not solely to foreground the work of emerging
artists, but also to provide a venue for more established artists to participate
in publishing in a craft form, or to publish at a local level in order to
further their ties to the community.
3 – What do you consider the role and
responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?
Small
publishing has some natural advantages in comparison to “big” publishing. For
one thing, I can use expensive paper materials and labour-intensive techniques
that no commercial press could justify in the production of a commercial
product. I’m not profit driven, so I don’t have to worry too much about
readership and market forces—I can simply publish writing that I enjoy, that I
find value in. I can only hope that others will enjoy it too.
My
responsibilities as a publisher, and I think this is true for trade publishing
as well as small publishing, are to provide an accurate, well-designed,
attractive material vehicle for the poet’s verse.
4 – What do you see your press doing
that no one else is?
I’m not sure
that any press can offer unique content or form, but I think that the
experimental and avant-garde poetry communities in Ottawa are already fairly well-served.
My press titles offer striking subject material thoughtfully wedded to form. The
poems should be readable, apprehendable, emotive, stylistically adept, and
arresting. Perhaps the press attempts to operate as a rear-guard to the avant-garde.
5 – What do you see as the most
effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?
Readings,
press fairs, social media, word of mouth, and recruiting poets who can champion
their work.
6 – How involved an editor are you? Do
you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?
As an
academic who has marked thousands of undergraduate essays, I’ve had to learn to
step back from an overly directive approach and become more of a mid-wife,
assisting the writer where there might be need. Editing, I think, at its best
is a dialogic process, where there is give and take on both sides.
7 – What are your usual print runs?
A typical
print run is 60-80 copies. Depends on how long my particular stock of specialty
paper holds out.
8 – How do you approach the idea of publishing
your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant,
refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their
tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What
do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question
as irrelevant?
I’ve never
imagined that Textualis would be a vehicle for my own writing. I don’t trust
myself with my own work—I need the restraining, correcting, second-sight
influence that a publishing house with professional editors provides. However,
self-publishing can allow emerging and/or radical authors to have something to
distribute to potential readers; this can be invaluable, for if you wait for
trade presses to recognize the brilliance of your manuscript in their slush
piles, you could wait a very long time indeed.
9 – What, as a publisher, are you most
proud of accomplishing? What is your biggest frustration?
I’m very
proud, amazed really, with each of the little books I’ve put together. My
biggest frustration is that I often have to import paper from the States, as
the range of quality papers available in Canada is severely limited. Another huge
frustration is finding machines that will run the cover stocks that I use
without spitting them out, shredding them, our chewing them up in some
inaccessible part of the printer. Oh yeah, and the price of ink cartridges—a
corporate scam if I ever saw one.
10 – Who were your early publishing
models when starting out?
I like the
whole punk DIY ethic. One of the first times I really encountered it was in San
Francisco in the 80’s, where Aaron Cometbus was selling a series of little
zines of his memoirs about his travels, living on the streets, and the whole
bay area punk scene. The guy was a fabulous writer, and he was writing about
stuff no mainstream press would touch at the time. He didn’t have access to commercial
publishing, so he did it himself.
The other
end of the spectrum, I do a fair bit of critical work on crime pamphlets
published in Renaissance England. Predating the periodical press, these little
books reported on the spectacular crimes of their day and often featured lurid
woodcuts to accompany the reportage. Designed to be cheap, easily digestible,
and somewhat tawdry, they were nonetheless real works of craft and artistry.
The kinds of paper I use and the stitching that I do with my own press is not
so far off from that which publishers from the very earliest days of print
would use.
11 – How do you utilize the internet, if
at all, to further your goals?
At some
point in the future, I will develop an online presence for the press. Have to
find the time. [ed. note: he finally found the time]
12 – Do you take submissions? If so,
what aren’t you looking for?
At the
moment, I’m not taking unsolicited submissions. The books take a considerable
time to produce, and with the responsibilities of taking care of my daughter,
teaching, and organizing VerseFest, I find that I can only realistically produce
2-3 titles in a calendar year.
13 – Tell me about three of your most
recent titles, and why they’re special.
Vivian Vavassis’ chapbook, XII does a superb job in forging coherences between
short lyrical poems to construct a compelling narrative of desire, loss, and
the human need to recognize and be recognized by another. She effectively weaves
motifs, like the honeycomb, through an elliptical series of poems—departing
from an image only to have it reappear in an altered guise.
Vivian’s
imagery is particularly fresh and evocative, “Loving you, I became a long-limbed
trapeze artist.”
There is
much in Sneha Madhavan-Reese’s Variations in Gravity that captivates:
the precision of her intellect, the range of her subject material, the care
with which she uses language, but perhaps above all else, her compassion,
something we’d all like to see more of in the world. I have a particular
fondness for the variety of her object-poems; in “Dinoflagellates,” she
describes these minute beings, on which so much life depends, with linguistic
flair:
Whirling whips, these
single-cell drifters
flail their flagella
and spin in the tide.
I’ve been a
long-time admirer of Stephen Brockwell’s playful and politically pungent verse,
and I think that “Where Did You See It Last” contains some of his best work. In
“Marathon Water Station, 24 Mile Waypoint,” his alexandrines take longer and
longer to say as the people in the race get slower and slower—this is simply a
tour-de-force performance by a poet at the height of their powers. The articulation
of his observations can simply knock a reader off their perch: “Old scotch
strider, knobbed knees buckle under his kilt…”
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