Pulling our annual New Year Book together is never straightforward. We’ve been greeting the New Year this way now for twenty years, and we can safely say that no two have been much alike. From the beginning the plan has been to find interesting content first, and fit it to whatever paper is about the place. So usually they have been printed on carefully stored off-cuts from books, and designed to minimize waste as well as to look nice. When all goes according to plan, they are printed in our break between Christmas and New Year, when we lay aside the current project and devote the week to this jeu d’esprit.
The content came easily this year: we were impressed with Vona Groarke’s poem as soon as we read it – high on the wall in the atrium at John Rylands Library (see the last post for the context), and were pleased to have her permission to publish it. At this time of year when we metaphorically archive the events and achievements of the past year and mentally prepare ourselves for the year to come, it seemed particularly apt.
Although we hope to print a large broadsheet version, printed in 12-point type, the poem makes a handsome 20th New Year Booklet. We found some Wookey Hole mould-made off cuts for the content, hand-set and printed the poem in Lectura type, and sewed the finished sheets into Murillo card covered with a decorated paper designed by Alan Drummond. To complete the whole we also made the envelopes to suit.
Although subscribers and Friends of the Press get copies in January, we do have some copies available for purchase from the website. Booklet and envelope come together in a plain brown wrapper.
Incline Press Gallery 