Poet Laureate Peter Meinke and Artist Jeanne Meinke Share a Taste of Letterpress Printing at the Tampa Book Arts Studio

Florida’s Poet Laureate, Peter Meinke, and his wife, artist Jeanne Clark Meinke, stopped by the Tampa Book Arts Studio recently to celebrate the publication of their most recent book, Tasting Like Gravity. He and Jeanne got the feel of making a solid letterpress impression by hand on one of the vintage Kelsey platen presses.

Tasting Like Gravity was published this fall by the University of Tampa Press in hardback and paperback editions. It features 35 new poems by Peter, including 22 “Rondeaux for the 21st Century,” with drawings and a cover image by Jeanne. It is Peter’s seventeenth book of poetry, and their sixth collaborative publication with the University of Tampa Press.

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Our commemorative bookmark celebrating the new book’s official debut  reproduces a small apple-tree woodcut by J. J. Lankes, with the opening lines of the first poem in the collection, handset in Kennerley Old Style types designed by Frederic Goudy:

Language

falls around me

like apples from a music tree

tasting like gravity . . .

Tasting Like Gravity is now available

for purchase in paperback and hardback editions.