Description

Coracle Press: The Norfolk Books. Two books which engagingly document publications made out of Coracle Press’s studio in Docking, Norfolk, during a twenty three year period. Offered here as a pair. These are ideal for people keen on Norfolk, on history, bibliography, and indeed fans and followers of Coracle Press.

Coracle Press: the Norfolk Books

Printed in Norfolk, Coracle Publications 1989-2012.

This book was produced on the occasion of an exhibition to mark the retirement of their Norfolk printer, Crome and Akers in King’s Lynn. It catalogues all the Norfolk work, prefaced by an essay by Simon Cutts: ‘The Norfolk Years’. But much more than that, it acts as a retrospective review of all their work. John Bevis’s comprehensive essay ‘A Stargazy Pie’ gives a history of all Coracle Press ventures, from Camberwell, London, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Florence, Italy, via Norfolk, to Ireland.

Spines and Spirals: The Norfolk Books 1990-96

Part document, part memorabilia, part poetic record. This publication contains a list of books produced out of Coracle Press’s Docking studio. But far from being simply a catalogue of the Norfolk books, there are also snatches of observation, images and poetry.

Coracle books seek the generality of the occasion for a publication which may arise from its particularity: the observation and recording of a phenomenon, the identification of genres, the seemingly obsessive classification. In this they may resemble less other artists’ books, whatever they are, than all books in general surveyed eclectically.

About Coracle Press

Coracle Press is a small and completely individual publishing press which has been operating for over 35 years..  Writer and artist Erica
 Van Horn and poet, artist and editor Simon Cutts, direct it now from a small 
farm between the hills of South Tipperary, Ireland. They have been there since 1996. However, Simon Cutts began Coracle in London in the nineteen seventies, as publisher, gallery,
 and a space for books. The last London book shop project project was ‘workfortheeyetodo’  in the mid-nineteen nineties. They also had a Norfolk connection, between 1989-2012, printing many of their works from a printer, Crome and Akers, based in King’s Lynn.

From their remote spot in Ireland, they continue as printer-publisher, editor of
 spaces. They describe their practice as ’employing many of the devices and formats of hypothetical
 publishing inherent in the small press’.  Their books have both critical and playful
 dimensions. But they are also steeped in poetry – they call it a residue of poetry – concerned with the mechanisms of the book as a manifestation of the poem 
itself. They are also mindful of their many collaborations  with other artists and writers, which evade any clear category.

Being open to new ideas and approaches marks all their projects. Limiting their scope or over-categorising their content or defining their range does not interest them.
The books themselves are not so concerned with craft tradition,
 limited-ness of edition, hand-made paper or elaboration of binding. While each one has its unique character and appearance, what they want to achieve is the plain and simple case-bound book, the sewn paperback. They are working constantly at extending the category of ephemera. Making quirky visions, askance views, eccentric perceptions widely available is what they are all about.