We decided to purposefully “blur lines” because that is what we were doing naturally. We are influenced most by the people and materials we work with. Materials come in many different forms—writing, color, personality, paper. Materials come in ink and we are inspired by the tracks. Right now, we enjoy our openness—not knowing what next five years will bring. We love the fact that our aesthetic and mission will evolve over time—as we grow and invite more people into the collaborative process.
So we’re not much into categories. Not when it comes to Delete Press. We are open to anything, but that doesn’t mean we like everything. We publish “anti-gravity ephemera,” as Crane puts it. As far as the medium is concerned, electronic or print, we make that call based on the manuscript, as we seek a harmony of form and content.
Aesthetically and mission-wise, which is to say, in relation (as Kamau Brathwaite advises poets, it has to be) to the rest of the poetry field, I’d like to think of Delete as a dexterous flea.
Probably many of us have tried our hand at our own book design, chapbooks or magazines, computer generated and printed. Some of us have even taken a course or two…
Copilot’s mission? Make interesting work and know when to make silences. (This is very distinct from being silenced.) There is so much output in our culture right now that it becomes crucial to know when to be still and listen, to let fallow and let die. I value cycles over productivity for the sake of itself.