Poetry is news that stays news. -- Ezra Pound On the phone, my father recalls his time in the Charleston High School print shop, the hours he spent standing in a shaft of moted sunlight plucking the s, the e, the t from the California Job Case, sliding them into the composing stick. I printed The Book Strap, he says, the school newspaper. You remember. I do remember, twenty five years behind him, how each Friday I was eager to see who’d been chosen Student of the Week, what would be said about the weekend game, which teacher might reveal some amazing fact (she drives a Mustang?). I never thought about who set the type, which boys in their rolled-up sleeves and aprons, Industrial Arts boys, brought words to the page, made sure their was not there, united not untied. I tell my father I’m calling late because on Monday night I teach the Book Arts class. I’ve spent four hours pointing out the gears and shafts on the Chandler & Price, how to treadle the press, how to choose and distribute type: Bembo, Baskerville, Garamond, Helvetica, Goudy Old Style, Spartan Bold, a poem on my tongue. I was College Prep, in 4th year Latin, not woodworking, physics, not shop. Even then I loved the printed page, texture of rag and linen more than Laws of Motion, letters aligning toward the mystery called word, words busy to tell it all. My father says he liked the work, the steady rhythm of a story coming up. Three quarters of a century later, he’s proud he always got out the news on time. We say goodnight. Before I go to bed, I work to set the last line of this poem.
Guillermo Delgado’s Untitled #18, 2010, mixed media on wc paper, 6” x 12″
The Secret Lives of Things 