Produce Press

Produce Press

Editor: Rob Read

Location: Toronto, Poplar Hill

Duration: 2002 to current.

From 2000-2002 Read's impress was Palimpsest Press but this name was dropped after it became clear that the other Palimpsest Press was stealing the precious few readers Read was able to convince to read his publications. This last part is of course a joke, since to this day, no readers have been attracted to read any Canadian poetry.

From 2002 to the present, Produce Press (and its variant [producE Section press]) issued several full-length books, as well as approx. 10 issues of Maple Spits, a mix of multi-author small magazines and single-author chapbooks.

Authors Published:

Daniel f. Bradley, John Barlow, Kemeny Babineau, AEM (Anthony Metivier), Gustave Morin, Chris Fickling, mm cross, Sean Luciw, Rob Read and others...

About:

Produce Press publishes texts that transgress, but don't abandon, the accepted norms of what constitutes a piece of art. Print runs are small (from 26-100), and publications range from broadsheets to full-length books.

One of the more unique binding methods used is creating small runs of perfect-bound books by hand using inexpensive tools including hot glue guns and irons. Most text is tastefully laser-printed, often using historical (or mock-historical) fonts, and in some cases covers are silk-screened.

Two collaborative texts between Rob Read and AEM used the hand-made perfect-bound technique, as well as additional gimmicks. Open Letter Closed Book featured letter-sized pages folded in half with the fold opposite the spine, and came with a plastic knife taped to the last page. This commented on the 'closed book' aspect of the title and content of the book, and also reminded readers of the not-so-distant past in which most books required that the folds of the signatures be manually sliced open by a reader as they read the book.

Another collaboration between Read and AEM, Atone Neither Overflowing Clause has a bottom fore-edge cut on a bias to confound any who wish to shelve it, with a screen-printed image on a silver-mirrored stock. The bottom edge of the book was dunked in thick red paint giving the impression the book was recently used as a guillotine.

A small collection of some of Read's own poems, Spam Raper Spam Diaper, included a cover made of sandpaper.

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