We want to be troubled and inspired by the work. If there is anything explicitly outside our aesthetic, it is work that does not trouble us. We also want to be challenged by the distinct and diverse aesthetics of the various editors working together in this collective press.
Ultimately, the one thing about literature is that it’s never static. As soon as something becomes a trend, readers are looking outside of that trend, wondering what new kinds of books are out beyond the breakers, or still an undertow.
Our aesthetic, I believe, has always been simple: find unique storytelling, conversational poetry, edgy work that takes risks but isn’t trying to trick anyone or talk in circles or over heads; keep the writing real, imaginative, and mind-opening.
Eric Westerlind and I both work in the service industry to support Fathom. Our printer, Eberhardt, is also run by an independent artisan, struggling month to month. The money’s made on our backs and the books are too. We ‘cope’ by gritting teeth, keeping the friends and writers we admire close, and believing in our mission to make and share the dire books.
glo is influenced by emo, cowboys, nature pix, racing, wrestling, critters, dirt, and water. aesthetically we are chaotic good. we want to bring really drippy/sensitive/empathic art to the world—we’re hyperpersonal.
I’m interested in writers who offer exceptional counterpoints to the literary mainstream. These days that usually means people situated outside the Academy.
Will any of this change? Possibly, but I cannot predict what kind of outcome a potential change might result in, and there are certainly no easy solutions. Regardless of these issues, as publishers we have do whatever it takes to get our books in the hands of readers, and help create a competitive marketplace.
In a way I think writing is really a more fluid part of reading/thinking/living, which shouldn’t be as limited as it is by the fairly extreme expectations and rules our culture has about publication.
“I strive to incorporate the practice of meditation throughout the entire publishing process. Poetry and books are patient, waiting to be created and read, so we attempt to work and grow like a small but well-tended garden. We search for flowers. We try to subvert the hurry of everything around us. I don’t have a car, so when it’s time to deliver chapbooks, I walk on a trail to the post office and look at trees as I follow the creek that runs through our town.”
2017 was a whirlwind of a year for Paloma Press! And none of what we were able to undertake would have been possible without the help of the Filipino American community and the wider network of writers, artists, reviewers and booksellers, from the Bay Area, DC, Philly, Southern Cali, Luxembourg, New Zealand and the Philippines. In our case, it really took a village to launch our books.
Perhaps, in the longer term, automation and basic income will address the matter, but that’s a wee bit like looking forward to dancing a tango with a golden dinosaur at the end of the automation rainbow; bizarrely lovely to think about, unlikely to happen just yet. Right now, all I can ask is that people make time to read poetry well.
We’re not exempt just because we’re editors: if we’re going to ask for this type of work, we better be able to do this type of work. We have to know what it feels like to make it. It’s beyond us, but we’re not beyond it.
We have called it “small work” in the past, by which we mean, solely in relation to its size and not its content. To us, everything worthwhile should be able to fit in your back pocket.
The press is an extension of Beatlick News Poetry & Arts Newsletter, named “a gem of the underground press” at the height of its influence. For twenty-two years Joe was editor and book reviewer, I was columnist and publisher. Keeping the name and Mission Statement, I modeled Beatlick Press after Beatlick News in an endeavor to bring Joe’s only book to the light of day.