Announcing Printers Ball 2013: Trip & Return

CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, announces the ninth annual Printers Ball: Trip & Return. Spudnik Press Cooperative, one of Chicago’s premier independent printmaking houses, is taking the reins for this year’s program from the Poetry Foundation, the event’s founding organizer. The 2013 Printers Ball will be held on Saturday, July 27 at the Hubbard Street Lofts, 1821 West Hubbard Street, from noon to 6pm. Printers Ball is the city’s largest annual celebration of literary and printmaking culture.

The Printers Ball theme for 2013 is “Trip & Return,” a playful reference to a letterpress printing term and an acknowledgment of the return to discussion of the craft. This daytime event will host letterpress and screen-printing demonstrations, discussions by well-known print and poster makers, readings from local poets, and performances from Elastic Arts Foundation musicians throughout the many art and design spaces within the Hubbard Street Lofts. Local food trucks and beverage vendors will also be on hand. As is the tradition, over 400 magazines, literary organizations and design studios from across the country will provide complimentary magazines and ephemera to all attendees of this free event.

“Spudnik has grown and our studio has integrated more printing processes, including letterpress and offset printing,” says Angee Lennard, founder and executive director of Spudnik Press Cooperative. “With Printers Ball celebrating the materiality of the literary arts, we’re an ideal organization to address how literature and printmaking intrinsically speak to and support each other.”

Founded in 2004 by Poetry associate editor Fred Sasaki, the first Printers Ball was held at the now-shuttered HotHouse, later moving to various venues throughout Chicago, including the Double Door, the Zhou B Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Columbia College Chicago. Along the way, it has grown from a local celebration to an event with presenters from all over the United States and drawing attendees—last year more than 4,000—from across the city and beyond.

Printers Ball events include:

• Artist and writer Tony Fitzpatrick in conversation with Fred Sasaki
• Print-shop demonstrations with Brad Vetter and Alex Valentine
• Free jazz performances curated by Elastic Arts Foundation with Michael Zerang, Fred Longberg-Holm, Paul Giallorenzo and Aaron Zarzutzki
• Readings and broadsides curated by Woodland Pattern with poets Anne Kingsbury, Lewis Freedman and Anna Vitale
• Poetics Theater with the Danny’s Reading Series
• Conversations with Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and Detroit Wood Type Co.
• Reading and conversation with writer and visual artist Mary Burger
• Risograph demos with SPARE
• Workshops on surrealist poetry, bookmaking and bookbinding
• Summer spritzers by Hornswaggler Arts and WBC-Goose Island Root Beer and Spicy Ginger courtesy of the WIT Beverage Company
• Sweet treats by Ice3 Ice Cream and savory snacks by 5411 Empanadas
• On-the-spot tote bag screen printing by Spudnik Press Cooperative
• Read/Write Library’s BiblioTreka Mobile Library

Plus books, magazines and ephemera from all over! Visit printersball.org for a full schedule.

Curators include Sarah Dodson, MAKE Magazine; Nell Taylor, Read/Write Library; Luke Daly, arrow as aarow and Spudnik Press Cooperative; Adrienne Miller and Angee Lennard, Spudnik Press Cooperative; Chad Kouri, The Post Family; Elisabeth Hass, Simple Honest Work; Alison Kleiman, DePaul Art Museum; and Corrina Lesser, Chicago Humanities Festival.

Printers Ball 2013 is presented in partnership with Spudnik Press Cooperative Printshop and Annex, Platform, Johalla Projects, The Post Family, Simple Honest Work, and IAEOU. Made possible by the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine.

Sponsors include WIT Beverage and French Paper.

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About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is an independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. It exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit poetryfoundation.org.

About Poetry Magazine
Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume 1 of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre or approach. The magazine established its reputation early by publishing the first important poems of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Carl Sandburg and other now-classic authors. In succeeding decades it has presented—often for the first time—works by virtually every major contemporary poet.

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