praise poems, apple magic, and the business of next steps
We had a soulfully celebratory kerning launch event on October 17, which included a reading and conversation with Nan Seymour, poet and author of prayers not meant for heaven. Five kerning contributors also read their work from our debut issue—Elizabeth Garber, Lizzie Purkis, Michele Latvala, Kate Mapother, and Suzi Banks Baum—and though our internet bumped us off a couple of times (ah, Maine!), we are excited to share the recordings of the event below. (The link takes you to a Dropbox folder, where you’ll see two links, because we had to hit “record” again when our wifi blinked out.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mbx6k5t44ni0nkd/AAC9RnMHmRQY2sqR4vdha0F4a?dl=0
At the conclusion of the event, Nan invited participants to write, in the Zoom chat box, something that we were seeing and feeling right at that moment. She wove all the fragments into this gorgeous poem:
evening light fades
a praise poem, in celebration of kerning
by 27 friends of Toad Hall Editions
praise the light filtered across these latitude lines
praise a seventy degree breeze
tussling the changing leaves
praise orchids in bloom:
large peachy pink with purple faces
praise black ink on white paper
praise wind chimes
speaking louder as the wind picks up
praise white paint cracked and bubbled
making a desk like home
praise heat from the inside
cheeks glowing from all the smiling
praise the candle burning low and sputtering
praise a cold-water plunge
praise the thought of soup and biscuits
praise wine to celebrate
praise voices filling my otherwise quiet apartment
praise a diamond thin slime trail left by a slug
praise the tiniest glimmering footprint
praise the early dark
praise the reflection of light on pillows in my window
beckoning me to bed to read
praise swimming in the ocean in october
praise the feel of super wash merino wool yarn in my hands
praise goulash on the stove, lavender in the air, poesy in the room
praise binky black cat, rain-damp for the first time this drought year
praise rain! praise end of drought! hallelujah!
praise warm yellow walls
praise the ground from which you walk, it flies in you
praise the way this otherwise empty room resounds
evening light fades
but the heart is full
To hear Nan read the piece, go here.
In other news, we got to finally try out a friend’s apple press and made several batches of cider and
sauce from the bounty we hauled in from the three trees here at Toad Hall. Thanks to Z & F at Merrybell Motel for loaning us the press and the know how.
As a homegrown, startup small press, we at Toad Hall Editions are on a steep learning curve when it comes to figuring out how to manage our resources - energetic, financial, and otherwise. Running a small business is, essentially, a juggling act, but if you add in the work we do outside of the press (we all have side- and not-so-side gigs), it’s really more of a circus.
As always, the binding glue of most relationships is communication, and luckily, as a tiny team, we are able to quickly gather and assess what needs doing, and who will do it. We have a shared Google doc with a list of to-do’s, and we go through the items one by one, assigning ourselves tasks and updating each other when they’re finished. We’ve agreed that if emails need to be sent, at least one of us will read over what someone else has drafted before hitting “send.” This creates a good system of both accountability, fact-checking, and editing!
Earlier this week, we created a basic schedule of ongoing, weekly tasks and divided them into three sections: administrative, marketing, and editorial, realizing that some things (like blog posts and e-newsletters) are a fuzzy grey area between them. But for now, it is enough of a map to get us better organized, which is extremely important in juggling acts, not to mention a circus. We’ll let you know how it goes!