It takes three months for Patrick Riedy to produce his hand-bound chapbooks — small, usually 30-page long books of collected poetry that are printed in limited batches.

Riedy, a second year student in the English Ph.D. program, spends his breaks producing these chapbooks for PressBoardPress, a small print operation he founded when he was an undergraduate student at the University at Buffalo.

“Poetry has a longstanding tradition of trying to exist outside establishments, and part of that establishment is a control of publishing by big publishers,” Riedy said. “A lot of innovative or experimental work that poets tend to do might not have an audience with big publishers so the do-it-yourself culture has always been strong in poetry.”

The month-long process requires him to solicit poetry from artists he admires, produce a manuscript, print the covers and bind all the books by hand. All publications are accessible through PressBoardPress.com.

PressBoardPress prints a few chapbooks every year along with a yearly online journal. Since beginning the operation, Riedy said he has gained valuable experience in composing the aesthetics of poetry. He aims to present the poems in PressBoardPress’ chapbooks to be visually pleasing as well as sonically pleasing.

“If anything, it helps me understand the constructiveness of poetry, language and the ability to see a project through from an idea to a material but to also have those materials affect that idea,” Riedy said. “It’s made me pay attention to the way that you present your material — the way that the presentation can affect the reading experience.”

Riedy plans on running PressBoardPress “as long as it’s practical.” He aims to be a resource in Syracuse University’s poetry community to anyone who wants to participate and wants to continue the small press tradition.

“Artists and poets that I admire were deeply involved in small press publishing,” Riedy said. “So I see myself as fitting into this tradition that I admire and have a lot of respect for.”++++++

Published on March 2, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Momin: mrafi@syr.edu