Date: February 7, 2015
Printing: 7:00 p.m.
Reading: 7:30 p.m.
Poet: Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Asheville BookWorks continues Vandercooked Poetry Nights reading series that offers the public the opportunity to print letterpress broadsides at the series events. The broadside printed at each event displays a poem written by the evening’s spotlighted poet.

Hosted by BookWorks founder and director Laurie Corral, and poet Landon Godfrey, the event is free and open to the public.

The print is available for the nominal price of $5 that evening and $20 after that evening. The reading is free to the public.

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Asheville BookWorks hosts three Vandercooked Poetry Nights per year and presents prominent poets and printers. Vandercooked poets are available to sign the broadsides at the events. Upcoming readings will feature Matthew Olzmann on April 25, 2015, and Sebastian Matthews in October 3, 2015.

At Vandercooked Poetry Nights, everyone is invited to print a broadside on a Vandercook printing press. The limited edition letterpress broadsides highlight different printing methods, from traditional hand-set lead type to contemporary techniques like using photopolymer plates for deep impressions. Master printers introduce the printing presses and organize the printing during the Vandercooked Poetry Nights events.

BookWorks founder and director, Laurie Corral, said, “Multiple arts and writing communities intersect at the readings, opening their work up to new inspirations.” She added, “It’s exciting to see people interact with an historically important technology like the Vandercook printing press. Vandercooked Poetry Nights increase the public’s access to printing history, poetry, and art ownership.”

Frequent visitors to Vandercooked Poetry Nights will accumulate a complete portfolio of letterpress-printed broadsides. In addition to the open edition letterpress broadsides available at Vandercooked Poetry Nights events, BookWorks will offer a collectible annual portfolio of every print from the series.

Because the Vandercook printing press has become a rare object, Vandercooked Poetry Nights allow the public to experience an important but increasingly elusive printing technology. More than 30,000 Vandercook presses were manufactured in Chicago between 1909 and 1976; however, today fewer than 2,000 remaining Vandercooks have been identified in a worldwide census. Easy to operate, Vandercook presses have been adopted by artists and writers to control their own publications and to produce handmade objects.

Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable type printing press in approximately 1440. This printing method has been improved upon, but it remains the same in fundamental ways: paper is pressed to inked type to produce a printed object.