The Poet’s Press Featured Authors

 

Printing History Publications

“American Metal Typefaces.” [Book review]. Printing News, May 16 1987.

“The American printer in 1883: How he lived and what he looked forward to.” American Printer, 1983.

“American printing in the 1880's.” American Printer, 1983.

“And you thought you had management problems!” American Printer, 1983.

“Are we murdering our printing heritage?” NAPL Management Bulletin, January 1979.

“Calico and art prints: modest beginnings for the gravure giant.” American Printer, 1983.

“Graphic Arts History profiles 20th century's defining designers.” Book review. Printing News , September 10, 2001. 2 pp.

“The 1891 Inland Printer reported on the battle of the linecasters.” American Printer, 1983.

“First in-depth biography in English helps us find Gutenberg the man.” Book review of Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention by Dr. Albert Kapr. Printing News , 2001. 5 pp. plus sidebar on Internet printing history sites.

“For more than money: the joys of a century of printing.” [Feature article on the 100th Anniversary of the magazine Inland Printer, later American Printer .] American Printer, October 1983.

“Four Metro Area printing firm sagas show divergent paths to longevity.” Profile of four company histories for the 75th Anniversary issue of Printing News. February 3, 2003. 3 pp.

“Frank Preucil's library on color joins GATF's printing collection.” Printing News, June 14, 1999. 3 pp.

“From Pioneers to Leaders” an exciting saga. [Book review]." Printing News. December 24, 1983.

From Pioneers to Leaders. National Association of Printers and Lithographers, 1983. A hardcover, illustrated fifty-year history of the printing trade association. Based on archival materials plus original research by the author. Also excerpted as a series in The Printing Manager and Printing News.

“Hermann Zapf and his design philosophy. [Book review].” Printing News, June 1987.

“Johann Gutenberg and His Bible unravels some ancient mysteries.” [Book review] Printing News, October 1, 1988. 2 pp.

“John DePol Obituary.” Printing News, January 2005.

“John DePol's unforgettable engravings capture a lost New York and its printing history.” Printing News, Sept. 7 1998, 3 pp.

“Millennium of printing yields great moments.” A brief time-line of printing history since 800 A.D. Printing News , December 20, 1999. 3 pp.

“National Museum of Printing History opens its doors in North Andover, Mass.” Printing News , August 7, 2000. 3 pp. plus photography by BR.

“99 And Counting: Inland Printer/American Printer since 1883. A ten-part series chronicling the history of printing and typesetting technology since 1883. American Printer, October 1982 through October 1983.

“Offset: the black sheep that wouldn't go away.” American Printer. 1983 . Article on the early history of offset printing .

“Printing History Museum brims with treasures; latest exhibit draws printers and history buffs.” Printing News , November 18, 2002. 3 pp. plus photographs by BR, plus a sidebar “What on earth is a Wayzgoose?”

“Sad career of Ottmar Mergenthaler is revealed in landmark biography.” [Book review]. This long review recaps the tragic career of the inventor of the Linotype. Printing News, March 11, 1989.

“Sotheby's to auction first printing of the Declaration of Independence: Dunlap's rush job worth $4 to $6 million.” Printing News and Printing News On-Line , January 24, 2000. 2 pp.

“Those amazing men and their typesetting machines.” American Printer, 1982.

"Typophiles tribute to wood engraver John DePol has many memories for New York area printers.” Printing News , Feb 8, 1999.

“Volume on graphic design pioneers is a tribute to overlooked art form.” [Book review] Printing News, June 24, 1989, 3 pp.

“While preparing to celebrate its 75th Anniversary, HSGA [High School of the Graphic Arts] uncovers archival treasures.” Printing News and Printing News On-Line , May 7, 2001.

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Three Books

First up is the huge 208-page new collection of Brett Rutherford's The Gods As They Are, On Their Planets.. This is available as a free PDF on this site, or can be ordered from Our NEW ON-LINE BOOKSTORE. The Providence-based poet has included in this book all the poems he has written and revised since his last big collection, Poems from Providence. CLICK HERE TO READ THE PDF

The second new book is the expanded third edition of Brett Rutherford's landmark poetry collection, Whippoorwill Road: The Supernatural Poetry. This extraordinary 272-page paperback contains all the poet's supernatural poems, including more than 70 pages of new poems since 1998. Praised by Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury, these poems may be the best supernatural poems of the 20th century. Now you can read the entire PDF free on this site, or order the print edition from our NEW ON-LINE BOOKSTORE. To READ THE PDF, CLICK HERE.

The third new book is the expanded second edition of Brett Rutherford's biographical play, Night Gaunts: An Entertainment Based on the Life and Writings of H.P. Lovecraft. The book also includes a number of "ceremonial" poems written to be read at H.P. Lovecraft's grave in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence. The play has been performed twice at The Providence Athenaeum, and was recently adapted as a radio play by New England Institute of Art in Brookline, Mass. You can order the print edition from our NEW ON-LINE BOOKSTORE. To read the PDF, CLICK HERE

The Death of Jocasta The Writer's Circle of Providence selected Brett Rutherford's dramatic scene, "The Death of Jocasta," for a staged reading in April 2004. This reading was at Alumni Hall at Brown University, with a cast of professional actresses and students. The scene, in blank verse in ancient Greek style, is written to be inserted in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. In the Sophocles original, Queen Jocasta does the "proper" thing by committing suicide offstage when she learns that she has been married to her own son for twenty years. Rutherford's drama is a feminist exploration of Queen Jocasta's dilemma. In this version, she does not commit suicide: she is put on trial and condemned by the women of Thebes, and offers up a spirited self-defense. This small play had a tremendous impact on its audience, many of whom mistook it for a translation.	Printing History & Literature Lecturer Brett Rutherford has written articles and book reviews on printing history and is a book collector. He has given lectures for the John Russell Bartlett Society at The Providence Athenaeum, Brown University, and The Providence Public Library on "Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters," "Poe and Mrs. Whitman," and "Illustrated Editions of Edgar Allan Poe." At the Athenaeum, he has lectured on Edgar Allan Poe and Sarah Helen Whitman, and has read his supernatural poems there in a series of annual Halloween readings. For the last two years, Rutherford has been a guest lecturer at New England Institute of Art (AI) in Brookline, Mass, where he has presented on H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.
Classical Music Connections An avid collector of classical music and an occasional composer of keyboard music, Brett Rutherford has helped The Providence Athenaeum establish Rhode Island's best and most accessible circulating library of classical CDs. He has donated his entire collection of 4,000 CDs, ranging from Chinese opera to 20th century music, to be the foundation of the new circulating collection. He hopes to organize programs and lectures that will help re-establish the historic link between literature and art music. This collection also has a strong emphasis on American music. Brett Rutherford also writes program notes for the invitational chamber music concerts given by pianist Varda Lev, and for the concert series of The Rhode Island Chamber Music Society.	The H.P. Lovecraft Friends Group To foster local and international interest in H.P. Lovecraft and his Providence connections, Brett Rutherford established an informal H.P. Lovecraft Friends Group. This group meets sporadically for luncheons and field trips to graveyards, Lovecraft haunts, and other locales of spectral or literary interest. Rutherford usually runs these meetings and includes informal lectures on such topics as the origin of Gorgons, sea monsters, classic horror films of the 1930s and 1940s, Goethe's Faust, Lizzie Borden, and Poe- and Lovecraft-related topics. Sixteen issues of a tabloid-sized newsletter, titled The Cthulhu Prayer Society Newsletter, have been produced in print and on-line. Rutherford also runs a Yahoo discussion group called "Lovecraft In Providence," which encourages worldwide dissemination of these materials. Some people take delight in these things, although one librarian looked at the newsletter and snapped, "You people are nuts!"
Night Gaunts Brett Rutherford's play, Night Gaunts, was written to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the death of America's greatest horror writer, who spent almost his entire life in Providence. Two staged readings in 1987 and 1990 featured actor Carl Johnson as H.P. Lovecraft and played to sold-out houses. The script was published by The Poet's Press in 1988, and in a new, revised edition in 2005. The play includes two vivid female characters — Lovecraft's mother, who gets a great mad scene, and Lovecraft's New York wife, Sonia Greene, who enacts a kind of "Horror Honeymooners" with the romantically inept author. This play was adapted by Hal Hamilton into a radio drama, broadcast in Boston in October 2004. The German theatre company Expressis Vernis produced the play in Heidelberg in 2006.	Never Far From A Library Libraries are central to Brett Rutherford's existence. He grew up in places where they were minimal if not nonexistent. In recent years, he has donated almost all of his personal collections to libraries where they will be preserved and made accessible to the public. He gave more than 350 specimens of printing by the Roycrofters to The Providence Athenaeum, as well as his collection of 5,000 classical CDs. He has donated a collection of wood engravings by artist John DePol to the Providence Public Library's Daniel Berkeley Updike Collection, along with a number of books on printing history. Complete sets of the editions published by The Poet's Press have been donated to the Harris Collection at the John Hay Library at Brown University, and to Poets House in New York City. Rutherford chairs the Philbrick Poetry Prize Committee for the Providence Athenaeum.