Hard Press: "Who We Be"

Who We Be
lingo
New Media
Massachusetts Profile Series
National Profile Series
House of Outside Series

Art Profile Series
Forthcoming New Poetry
Sponsorship of Readings
Poet/Writer-In-The-Schools Program
Outreach & Collaboration

Our Purpose or Who We Be

Hard Press was founded in late 1992 and gained non-profit status in 1993. Our purpose is to promote both established and emerging literary, visual, musical, and theatrical artists by publishing their works in a variety of media. Hard Press is devoted to presenting literature and art of excellence in a manner which stays true to the original intent of the artist while enabling the artist's work to become available to and understood by a broad audience.

Our primary editorial focus is collaboration; we encourage a melding of arts traditionally thought to be separate. We encourage and support these projects through books, films, readings, exhibitions, CDs, CD ROMs, World Wide Web, and our magazine lingo.

The Hard Press Board of Directors:

Jon Gams, President; editor and publisher of lingo
Anne Bei Reiss, Treasurer and Business Manager
Susan Levin, editor of lingo and poet, Santa Monica, CA
Michael Orenstein, film editor, Hollywood, CA
Michael Gizzi, poet and teacher, West Stockbridge, MA
Antoinette Bill, Santa Monica, CA

We are especially grateful for the financial support provided by our many generous donors.

Our Quarterly Arts Journal, lingo: a journal of the arts

Hard Press' main activity is the publication of lingo. lingo is distributed nationally and has an approximate circulation of 3,000 which continues to grow with new each issue. An exciting interdisciplinary magazine, lingo covers poetry, fiction, music (all genres ranging from experimental to pop), contemporary art and art criticism, photography, and cinema. We feature comprehensive articles, and in-depth interviews with today's leading practitioners in their fields.

Crack open lingo and you won't believe your eyes:

Our art section abounds with glorious color plates illustrating what we consider to be the most exciting contemporary art accompanied by criticism from some of today's most respected art critics. Both renowned and up-and-coming artists, such as John Wesley, Trevor Winkfield, Kim Dingle, Anna Bialobroda, and Darragh Park have been featured in past issues.
lingo's poetry and fiction section keeps an eye on both the past and future. We feature established figures such as John Ashbery, Lyn Hejinian, Hubert Selby Jr., and Bernadette Mayer in addition to such important emerging writers as Chris Stroffolino and Lisa Jarnot.
No one covers the contemporary music scene like lingo. Top music critics Peter Occhiogrosso and Mark Swed keep us informed of the latest-breaking news in experimental circles. Recent articles have focused on the Bang On A Can gang as well as avant-garde musical developments in Eastern Europe.
Photography is a continued focus and is presented throughout the entire publication, both on its own and in conjunction literary work. lingo has presented the work of Ben Watkins, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Margaret Morton, to name a few.
And let's not forget cinema. An in-depth article on controversial film maker Abel Ferrara by critic Kent Jones was featured in lingo 4, lavishly illustrated with stills from Ferrara's recent films.

New Media

Hard Press continues to explore the latest technology as tools for our artists and writers to use in addition to traditional print media. A CD of spoken word and new music, originally issued with lingo 5 and out of print since that issue sold out, is now available as a separate release. We've produced Linda Smukler's new book of poetry Home in Three Days, Don't Wash as a CD-ROM. A video version of Lowell Connector will be available soon.

The Massachusetts Profile Series

The Massachusetts Profile Series was inaugurated by Hard Press in late 1993 with the publication of Lowell Connector: Lines and Shots from Kerouac's Town by Clark Coolidge, Michael Gizzi, John Yau, and Celia Coolidge. The purpose of the series is to highlight the region as a cultural center by publishing narratives that illustrate the impact that local artists have had on American literature and art in general.

In September 1994 Hard Press received a grant for the funding of the next production in the series from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. This funding will assist in the production of the video adaptation of Lowell Connector, due for release in 1997. In addition to historical footage of Lowell, it will feature interviews with the authors about Kerouac's influence on their own work, as well as interpretive readings by Coolidge, Yau, and Gizzi.

In addition, lingo 7 includes an extensive section featuring twenty-six authors from the Boston area, including the nation's Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky.

The National Profile Series

This series focuses on the publication of major work by contemporary authors not yet in the literary mainstream. Our first book in this series is The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters by Bernadette Mayer. Since its publication, this work has achieved the status of an emerging classic. We have been bombarded with orders from universities and colleges nationwide who are using it in literature and writing courses; in addition, bookstores throughout the country can't seem to keep it on the shelves. Perhaps it is the work's invigorating epistolary form that accounts for its popularity. We're proud to have been able to bring this legendary work to the attention of the general public. The second book in the series, Jim Brodey's Heart of the Breath, is a 15-year retrospective of the late Jim Brodey, a sensitive, astute, yet overlooked New York School poet who died in 1993 in San Francisco of AIDS. In publishing these brilliant poems, we hope to help give Jim Brodey the status he deserves as a major voice in late-20th century poetics.

House of Outside Series

One of the most exciting areas in which Hard Press is involved in is the cultivation and support of new writers. The House of Outside series is our outlet for publishing the first full-length books of young writers who may have only been previously published in journals or magazines. Two books authored by poets/writers whose work is recognized for its excellence will be published every six months, once in the fall/winter and once in the spring/summer.

We've chosen John Yau, distinguished art critic and writer, to edit this series. Mr. Yau is well-known for his presentation of the work of young artists distinctive for their strength, craft, and experimentation. These are strong first editions which we are confident attain tremendous literary stature. The series currently includes Lynn Crawford's Solow, Albert Mobilio's The Geographics, and Raphael Rubinstein's The Basement of the Cafe Rilke.

The Art Profile Series

The Art Profile Series features books showcasing the art of established artists living and working in the United States. The first book in the series, Sam Messer's One Man By Himself: Portraits of Jon Serls features portrait paintings by Sam Messer of the aged painter Jon Serls. Messer studied and painted the elderly Serls during the months preceding his death. These moving portraits render in-depth studies of relationships: the relationship of the artist to his work, and the relationship of one artist to another. The book, containing several pages of color plates, is elegant, hard-bound, and makes for a lasting testament.

Pageant, is a catalogue of the work of Trevor Winkfield, an English-born painter living in New York who is internationally acclaimed for his narrative graphical representations. Winkfield's work graced the cover of our lingo 2. John Yau's In Pursuit of the Invisible, a selection of works from the important art collection of Janice and Mickey Cartin, has become one of our best-selling art books. The most recent addition to the series, The Sky Below, by Gregory Amenoff, is a lavish presentation of work inspired by the writings of William Blake.

New Poetry

We are dedicated to publishing emerging poets. Linda Smukler's latest work, Home in Three Days, Don't Wash, is a series of passionate and forthright narrative expressions. Smukler reveals an intimacy between self and world whether in love, in ordinary life, or in memories. Miriam Solan's first book of poems, A Woman Combing is replete with images that lead us to internal landscapes of mind and emotions. The work of Michael Gizzi (co-editor of lingo), featured in one of our newest issues, No Both, abounds with cutting insight and a love of the sound and rhythm of language matched by few other writers today. We look forward to the publication of Andrew Joron's thoughtful, haunting and erudite The Removes.

Sponsorship of Readings

Hard Press regularly sponsors poetry readings of authors featured in our publications. These readings have been held in various locations in New York, Los Angeles and Massachusetts. Featured authors have included the French poet Joseph Guglielmi, and the 1997 Firecracker Alternative Press Award winner Linda Smukler.

Poet/Writer-In-The-Schools Program

Hard Press has sponsored a Poet in the Schools program, in which writers and poets are brought into Berkshire County schools to encourage students to make writing a creative and satisfying personal experience, and to incorporate writing into their everyday lives. At the end of these sessions the students publish an anthology of their work. To date, Michael Gizzi and Geoffrey Young have lent their services to this effort, and we look forward to the opportunity to involve other writers in this project in the future.

Outreach & Collaboration

Hard Press has become involved with some of New York City's most vital artists, who have no housing, lack space appropriate for creating and storing their art, and have few opportunities to exhibit their work. We have sought to draw public attention to their situation via publication of Margaret Morton and Nouk Bassomb's photo-essays on homelessness, and by facilitating the provision of a grant in 1997 to provide housing and studio space for five homeless individuals in New York City.

We also work in partnership with other non-profit organizations to promote the arts. Last year we initiated a cooperative mailing with several other small presses in order to increase circulation and audience. We donate administrative and bulk mailing services to the project. Please contact Ned Depew at Hard Press (413-232-4690) if you're interested in this as a possibility for your literary or arts organization.

We seek to serve as a resource for artists and will search for funding sources and other available resources that will enable artists to present their work. Our staff strives to cultivate our relationships within the arts community and bring forth the best possible avenues for promotion of the work.

Our website is one of our most important outreach tools, and is accessed by hundreds of people daily. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please contact our webmaster, Kathleen Seidel, and let us know how we can serve you better, and what you would like to see on your next visit.