Sierra Suite is a collection of "found oral poems” I composed during a training session at the library where I worked. While we were being trained to use a circulation software called Sierra, I was struck by how much of the presenter's language was about authority and control, about who grants us the rights to do things in a digital environment. Taken out of context, her words resonated more broadly.

For this first book project using the poems, I hand set them in metal type and printed them on a Vandercook SP-15 proof press. The covers are also letterpress-printed, featuring a relief print from a carved piece of Davey book board. While each edition of Sierra Suite is a straightforward poetry chapbook, as I produce other editions of the poems in radically different formats it becomes an exploration of how presenting the same words in different bodies might change how we read them. After the initial letterpress edition shown here, I have produced print-on-demand, cartonera, laser-printed mini-zine, and one-of-a-kind scroll versions of the poems.

Details of the letterpress edition pictured:

2017
5.5” x 6”
24 pp.
two-sewn-as-one pamphlet binding
edition of 10
$45

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