Poet Tree was a chapbook I printed in 1970 using our old family letterpress. The literary content is decidedly amateur, youthful and angst-ridden, most of which is not worth sharing. I publish this page just to show a sample of what was probably to largest project ever undertaken using this particular press while it was in our family's possession. The press now resides in the collection of the King Library Press at the University of Kentucky.
The book contained 21 poems on 24 pages, saddle stitched with staples. The cover was produced on heavy stock from a pencil sketch which I transferred to silkscreen via a photosensitive film. This was the first and only time I ever used a silkscreen.
The title page shows most of the lead fonts we had, including Old English and Bernhard Fashion, among others. The body text was 10 pint Caslon. The paper I chose to use for the project was horrible -- a hard surfaced, translucent typing paper from the local stationers. It did not take ink well and I was more interested in getting it done than getting it right. I know a lot more about typesetting now -- at least enough to know better than to try such a project again.
