Murray Reiss

Distance From The Locus — 11 poems

"In the gorgeously produced book, Distance from the Locus, Murray Reiss has crafted powerful moving poems, many of them centered on Sarnia, Ontario, where he grew up. By showing how his family took root there, he reveals a community taking shape. In the poem Tiny Pink Needles, he uncovers the shocking truth about chemical manufacturing in Sarnia and how it has spread ruin throughout that community. I was most taken with the clarity of these poems, and how rich with life they are, and how well they know the urgency with which we live." — Robert Hilles

Colophon: Cover 6" x 8 1/2", with French flaps. Paper: Environment Smooth Natural White 80lb, 100% recycled, 50% sugar cane fiber. Cover blind-embossed on flap with "island poets" in 48 pt Palatino. Title and author hand-set in metal type and letterpress printed by Peter Haase on a 100-year-old C & P platen press. Type: Italian Old Style Roman 36, 30 & 24 pt. cast by Jim Rimmer of Pie Tree Press. Two colours of ink handmixed (reddy browns). Linocuts created and printed by Peter Haase; store dummy in a window and colour sweep across bottom of cover. Endpapers handmade by Reg Lissel: 100% deckled cotton with pieces of summer seaweed, dried arbutus & wasp nest, harvested on Salt Spring Island. Vat sized and air dried. 2nd endpaper: Environment Desert Storm Smooth, 60lb, 100% recycled, 50% sugar cane fiber. Text paper: Concept Vellum, Sand, 60lb, acid-free. Text set in Aldine. Layout by Mark Hand Design. Book designed, edited and constructed by Mona Fertig. 28 pages. Handsewn with brown embroidery thread from France. Inside text printed by Imagine That Graphics — Salt Spring Island — on a Xerox Phaser 7750GX. Chapbook comes in bi-orientated polyproylene acid-free bag. Numbered and signed by the author. Published by (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Presš — October 2005. © 2005 Murray Reiss.

About the Author: Murray Reiss moved to Salt Spring Island with his wife Karen, a ceramic sculptor, and their daughter Kaya, then five years old, in 1979, not long after the commune they'd helped start in the Ottawa Valley fell apart. He's lived nine years in the north end, thirteen years in the south end, with four years in Vancouver—doing solidarity work with the Nicaraguan revolution—in between. On Salt Spring, he has been a pizza maker and ice cream scooper, special education teacher, child care worker and freelance writer, and has worked for the Conservancy and Water Council to help protect the island's water. His poetry and prose have been published in literary magazines and anthologies in Canada and the United States, and have been short-listed for several prizes and awards. Most recently, his poems have appeared in Coming Home, along with those of four other island poets. He now works as an editor and environmental grantwriter. Distance From The Locus is his first chapbook.

Edition: Limited Edition of 125.

ISBN: 1-896949-34-7

Year: 2005

Price: $20 CND plus $3.00 shipping