⬆ The image above is the result of a test run we did for our Haiku Meander Book workshop.

Over the past 15 years, our Meander Book workshop has been Lead Graffiti’s favorite workshop. Typically, the project gave college-level design students a hands-on connection to the history of printing via letterpress, along with a typographically focused piece almost guaranteed to land in the student’s final portfolio.

Haiku Meander Book Workshop

Now, we are offering the workshop with a poetic twist: 1, 2, or 3-day workshops focusing on writers in general and poets in particular. Lead Graffiti and poet Deborah Arnold are collaborating to offer a workshop that builds connections among haiku, letterpress, and bookmaking.

No experience in writing or letterpress is needed—just your enthusiasm to join this engaging cooperative workshop. Your take-home result is three copies of a 14-page, no-sew-no-glue, collaborative hard-cover book of original poetry printed via letterpress.

Guided by Poet-in-Residence Deborah Arnold, in collaboration with Lead Graffiti’s Jill Cypher & Ray Nichols, the Haiku Meander Book Workshop is for writers and book artists looking to take their creative practice in a fresh direction with a focus on haiku – from its traditional Japanese form as three phrases of 5-7-5 syllables, to the innovative 17-syllable “American Sentence” created by poet Allen Ginsberg.

Workshop participants will write haiku, compose their verse in type, letter by letter, and print it in a collaborative meander book format, folded and bound with hard covers. Expect surprise jars filled with writing prompts to excite your imagination, paint chip cards with random bits of poetry, and the opportunity to explore spontaneity in a compassionate community where creative voices and ideas are respected and nurtured.

⬆ This flat text block displays the grid showing the placement of fold and tear lines.

The colorful background letterforms spell out the American sentence using various larger wood and metal types. You're in charge of only one page out of 14, but it's yours alone to command as you will. You are encouraged to color outside the lines, play, and experiment with your typographic opportunities.

This meander book project honors the historical processes of type composition using wood & metal type, as well as printing via letterpress along with bookmaking.

Deborah Arnold

Deborah Arnold has been teaching writing as a practice engaged with the visual arts and book arts for over 30 years at public libraries, art centers, and universities. Her letterpress chapbook collaborations with Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti include Bouquet and The Vase, which feature her original poetry and Jill’s paste paper paintings, and Chesapeake Meander. Her mixed-media poem “Hieroglyphs” was included in the University of Delaware’s “Random Acts of Poetry” public arts project. A cofounding member of Upper Chesapeake Book Arts and the No Boundaries Writers Table, she creates and lives in Elkton, Maryland.

Good to know

Generally, for 6 to 14 people, age 15 and better.
$150 per participant for the 1-day workshop.;
9 working hours plus lunch and snacks included.
For your workshop, wear comfy shoes (our concrete floor is hard) and work clothes (you will get dirty). Dress for the weather—we are not air-conditioned, and in winter the heat rises to the ceiling 22 feet up.
We supply all tools and materials. Be sure to bring questions, some knowledge of Lead Graffiti's work, your camera, and a notebook to record your process.

In the beginning

We start with a short tour of our lab, a quick demonstration of hand-setting metal & wood type, and a few Lead Graffiti portfolio pieces.

Deborah will follow with a discussion about Haiku, the American Sentence, and writing prompts to help you start your process. Then you're on your own, exploring type cases, mixing and matching, and sorting through design options. Each person is responsible for the words, composing the type, ornaments, borders, punctuation, and spacing for one page in what will become a 14-page hard-cover book (complete with printed cover, title page, and colophon) by the end of the day.

These are some of the more than 60 different meander books produced since 2011 that are included in Rare Books at the Library of Congress and Special Collections at the University of Delaware.

⬆ These are some of the more than 70 different meander books produced in Lead Graffiti workshops since 2011, which are held by Rare Books at the Library of Congress and Special Collections at the University of Delaware.

Good things come in threes

Take a break with a pizza lunch in the studio to talk about your haiku and page design, and ask questions about creativity, typography, old-school printing, and anything that keeps you focused on your project.

During the workshop, each person will print 3 copies of their book's cover using a hand-cranked Vandercook SP15 press. Once all the pages are set and locked up, everyone will print their broadsides on an automatic Vandercook Universal III, which will serve as the text blocks for the books.

Bonus no. 1: You'll sit at our Intertype line caster and keyboard your name in "hot metal" for use in the colophon. Mark Twain called Ottmar Mergenthaler's original machine (invented in nearby Baltimore in the 1880s) the "8th wonder of the world" for a reason.

After everything is printed, you'll do some nimble folding and careful tearing to transform a single flat sheet of paper into a smart little accordion book (shown below). With no sewing and no gluing, the binding will hold the book together with a remarkable no-visible-means-of-support construction.

Bonus no. 2: You’ll walk out with a finished copy of the book and enough printed material to produce 2 more books on your own, so you can practice what you've just learned. You’ll have a finished piece and some cool talking points for the future.

Bonus no. 3: The Rare Books and Special Collections of the Library of Congress and the Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library maintain complete sets of the books that result from this workshop. Having your work in those collections makes for a pretty cool line on your résumé, too.

From our portfolio

Not just for workshops, this meander book format also makes a carefully-crafted, fine press book. John Dorsey, an Ohio poet, wrote 12 short poems specifically for this Lead Graffiti book, produced in an edition of 125 signed and numbered copies, plus 12 deluxe copies, each encased in a clamshell box (shown below).

Below is Chesapeake Meander, a collaborative book by poet Deborah Arnold and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti.

Photos from the workshop

The studio buzzes as ideas and typography come together.

The studio really buzzes as people seek out the perfect typeface for their poem.

A bit of bright color and a lot of concentration make for a satisfying broadside.

Printing the text block on our automatic Vandercook Universal III.

Getting familiar with type through touch makes you more aware of the design decisions you need to make.

This shows an up close and personal view of hand setting wood and metal type.

The first print rolling off the press always makes a good photo op.

It is a good photo op once all of the haiku poems have been positioned over the American sentence.

A nip here, a tuck there and before you know it, you've made a book.

The image above shows the scoring and folding of the final textblock prior to adding the cover.

HAIKU MEANDER BOOK: creative letterpress