Named after an umbrella the philosopher, F. Nietzsche forgot in 1888 and J. Derrida remembered in his book “Eperons (=Spurs)” of 1972, Nietzsche’s Brolly was started in 1985 to give me a chance to publish a series of books that would bring the Symboliste tradition of C.Baudelaire and S. Mallarme’ into English-language poetry through translation, my own narratives and deconstructions with some concrete poetry chock-a-block, book by book.
Volume 4 was,”Marshall’s Frankliecygnoctras” (2007) 276 poems from 7 languages and “E to the eeth = H = eta = 6” was the sixth: 79 VZWL poems in an edition of 81, each with a differently collaged cover-envelope (2021). Under that aegis i have also published two sky-breaking VZWL collections: jwcurry’s “Can’t Afford No Kodak, instamatik, instamatik, vlm.2” (1991) and, more recently, Gustave Morin’s “A few poetry” (2018).
But i was also a magazine and book distributor to bookstores, taking on other presses’ works to sell and needed a simpler, more inclusive name. Hence, “Imago Press” was born in 1992 and under that name i have published a children’s book, a book of plays by Daniel David Moses, four of my own haiku books, three haiku anthologies and a bilingual translation of Ste’phane Mallarme’s sonnets. I have no interest in what other people want to read. I believe i’m based on a radically authentic poetic footing and write what i think and publish it and other works that find support within that context.
This year i published my book of’haiku hollows’ called, “swallow s tail s” that slows down the pace to the incidence of letters and lets the spaces all within sing and am preparing for a 2025 release of a magnificent concrete/VZWL anthology