Habitual Own Way (The Corrected Wronger Poems)

Poetry; with black and white photos by Shelly Vogel

In a moment of weakness in 1981 I decided to print a collection of my own poetry. This is something that plagues all small press publishers, especially when their friends tell them their work is good (in hopes of getting their own slim volumes printed). But no one has said this is good poetry; in fact people mainly comment on how great the photos are and what a shame they are tied to this crummy book of verse. On the other hand I am pleased with the design of the book: I used all the little gimmicks I had previously been trying to foist on poets unsuccessfully, including small type, printing the whole book on an angle, and printing it by letterpress but trying to make it look like offset. Actually the poems were typeset by the legendary Graham Mackintosh (of White Rabbit Press) in Santa Barbara, in Linotype Scotch, and he managed to sneak a few very droll typos in there. He also printed the photos on his Multilith so the book is a hybrid of letterpress and offset, for which reason we designated it as “an Octoroon Book.”

Cuneiform with this volume: Horror vacuui

• Saved in: Photography, Poetry