GRAPE PRESS, WITH ITS black boarders and it's name blazoned in white letters, was a little magazine that I published with friends back in my college days. Each issue comprised a pocket-sized folded piece of paper with a single insert. The idea was that each contributor could do anything they wanted with their issue of Grape Press, and the sky was the limit and it would be their own baby.
In the small hours of the night, we printed on a xerox machine at an office belonging to the father of a close friend.-- cut the Grape Press on the paper cutter in the art school's printmaking department; and the next day distributed copies of the little magazine around campus, at record stores, bars and cafés. We had completed nine issues and were up to a circulation of 250 when Grape Press stopped it's operation in May 1985.
Meanwhile, in a rash moment this Summer, I relaunched Grape Press on facebook with the idea that my friends could post their work on the wall, and see what each other was up to. The wall would be the actual magazine. News of the little magazine's rebirth was received enthusiastically by many of my friends who remembered Grape Press.
It wasn't long before Grape Press launched its counterpart on the web for the sake of a clean and less cluttered home page; free of the advertising, which made our facebook page feel more like the Midway of The State Fair than a literary magazine.
Yet, as things have evolved, Grape Press continues to receive submissions on its facebook wall. It has become a lively and exciting place to visit on the web!
Grape Press on facebook has also in the meantime become the old fashioned transom -- moreover, an internet portal through which Grape Press has received, from both accomplished and emerging writers and artists, a fine range of poetry, fiction, artwork, photos, and even film! Works that continue to dazzle us by finding in the ordinary, small things of everyday life the extraordinary.
-- William Dew, September 2010
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Dun Emer Press at work, ca. 1908
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Ashley Bell, Chitterlinks
Nathan Motley, The Pastry Shop: Ten Drawings
Wen Wen Lin, Photo with Poem
i was chasing shadows,/ the moving shadows,/
of the newly budded tree branches;// i was
looking for reflection,/ the reflection of an intangible reflection,/ of the belief in ideology,/
which is more real/ than "nothing"/ is real.//
it is the first spring day in/ new york....// Spring shadow is/ different than other season./
more timid and fearful,// but seems of knowing,/ of potentials, of inevitable/ liveliness ahead. // the type of shadow/ that is full of so much expectation.....// that makes me feeling guilty,/ of ever thinking--/ all was pure self deception.
Andrew Boston, Poem
I always forget to pay attention to your breath/ To watch your chest rise and fall/ At one time, I was ascending/ And you were descending/ But before that/ I was the moat around a tower/ I was moving in linear time/ You were moving in cyclical time
Colette Miller, Street Graffiti
Anonymous, Two Hypertext Poems
Jessica Freeman, Painting
Ashley Bell, Poem
In the bathroom and there was a spider in it// “Hello Spider” (A good song)//Pee the toilet/// Morning bathroom is for brushes where// The teeth hello and the spider// And the toothbrush it goes like// “hhghmng shspdr”
Aaron Fedor, Human Nature: PhotosGeorgia Myers, Letter: Two Portraits
Chester Layman, High-Born: An EssayAshley Bell, Table of Drops: A work in progress
When I was young I dreamed like many another child of being "high-born." Or at least a child of rich people -- one of my favorite books was the story of an Irish orphan in the Midwest who turns out to have well-to-do ancestry. Freud had taken note of this common childhood fantasy, which he called the family romance. (Hugh Haughton points out that Freud's German word was Roman, more accurately rendered "novel." Children invent their own family novels. But isn't the Novel, in its heart of hearts, a Romance?)
By three o'clock in the afternoon Adelio Navar was drunk, and after finding the Maker’s Mark to be too palatable had in an unprecedented act of clarity and self loathing switched to ouzo. He needed to slow down, and, since not drinking had long ceased to be an option, he ordered one. Adelio hated licorice, so ouzo was the logical choice, and an hour later through a cloud of putrid anise and sweat the waiter appeared with round four.
Melissa Meyer, Yaddo: Six Watercolors
Colette Leisen, Diary on the Portrait of a Woman
I had forgotten how beautiful it was.//
12 dècembre: George Sand said, I felt suffocated when I was married, and now my freedom frightens me more. I had come home and written him a letter. My fears, my anxieties, my hopes. There was a Christmas when I wished him the bubonic plague. There was a time I would sit in the bath surrounded by candles and tea leaves, reading erotica while he was on the other side of the door.// I wished him a life of purple roses and oversized tubs in oversized rooms.
Eugene Melino, Poem
You're sitting at the bar/ next to a couple of young Triceratops/ arguing whose father was a bigger bastard./ Big, loud, probably dangerous if pissed,/ they're still plant-eaters./ You are more of an Iguanadon yourself, but Your Father was a real T-Rex.
Nathan Motley, Four Unpublished Prints
Abandoned Space, Autopsychographia
Here is my box of dejecta. Middle terms, various fragments, lengths of celluloid gathered from the floor of the cutting-room -- the collective's cutting room floor. Little purges in the tensed struggle for brevity -- our storied mother of wit.
H. Cornhill, 2026 Plan: News and Views
So what is in 'New Zip,' you might ask. Upon review, any solid matter that has been so finely ground the content has become indistinguishable. Under further inspection, it seems to be comprised of equal parts Seaside, Florida (though the sand has been replaced by new turf and tiny nursery-bought trees), mixed with an equal portion of Soma. On a molecular level it looks very similar to the town of Stepford -- but again, with teeny weeny trees.
Ellen Honich, Photos
Ashley Bell, Three Poems
Isn't it pouncey?// Yes sufficiently so// It's sweet and pouncey and full of spring// This would appear to be the case// Isn't it the pounceyest thing you ever saw?!// In context, I suppose it is// Round and grumpy and extra pouncy
CJ Nye, Doodles
The doodle that started it all. "Roadkill" had lost too many original members, we needed a new name. Jessica and I were the primary artists. Added to weekly throughout the season; pen, highlighter markers on a Tyvek envelope.
Wen Wen Lin, Writing On Light
using camera lens chance operation from 1 to 49 (49 frames). Cycle of life and death of Samsara.
Lori Ellison, A Selection of Felt Tip Pen Drawings from the Notebooks
Also by Lori Ellison, Two Poems
In this harsh field of straw I kneel/ thrumming my lips with a wind-up angel// I am the one facing this/ worldly color glowing like murmuring/ embers/ that hold the grey in abeyance
Lagriffe Mboko, Three Paintings
William Draper, Song Lyrics
When all the birds stop singing/When all the people have stopped talking,/You may hear that faint bell ringing/You may be the undead walking.
Eddie Peters, Photos
Melissa Meyer, Yaddo: Six Watercolors
Colette Leisen, Diary on the Portrait of a Woman
I had forgotten how beautiful it was.//
12 dècembre: George Sand said, I felt suffocated when I was married, and now my freedom frightens me more. I had come home and written him a letter. My fears, my anxieties, my hopes. There was a Christmas when I wished him the bubonic plague. There was a time I would sit in the bath surrounded by candles and tea leaves, reading erotica while he was on the other side of the door.// I wished him a life of purple roses and oversized tubs in oversized rooms.
Eugene Melino, Poem
You're sitting at the bar/ next to a couple of young Triceratops/ arguing whose father was a bigger bastard./ Big, loud, probably dangerous if pissed,/ they're still plant-eaters./ You are more of an Iguanadon yourself, but Your Father was a real T-Rex.
Nathan Motley, Four Unpublished Prints
Abandoned Space, Autopsychographia
Here is my box of dejecta. Middle terms, various fragments, lengths of celluloid gathered from the floor of the cutting-room -- the collective's cutting room floor. Little purges in the tensed struggle for brevity -- our storied mother of wit.
H. Cornhill, 2026 Plan: News and Views
So what is in 'New Zip,' you might ask. Upon review, any solid matter that has been so finely ground the content has become indistinguishable. Under further inspection, it seems to be comprised of equal parts Seaside, Florida (though the sand has been replaced by new turf and tiny nursery-bought trees), mixed with an equal portion of Soma. On a molecular level it looks very similar to the town of Stepford -- but again, with teeny weeny trees.
Ellen Honich, Photos
Ashley Bell, Three Poems
Isn't it pouncey?// Yes sufficiently so// It's sweet and pouncey and full of spring// This would appear to be the case// Isn't it the pounceyest thing you ever saw?!// In context, I suppose it is// Round and grumpy and extra pouncy
CJ Nye, Doodles
The doodle that started it all. "Roadkill" had lost too many original members, we needed a new name. Jessica and I were the primary artists. Added to weekly throughout the season; pen, highlighter markers on a Tyvek envelope.
Wen Wen Lin, Writing On Light
using camera lens chance operation from 1 to 49 (49 frames). Cycle of life and death of Samsara.
Lori Ellison, A Selection of Felt Tip Pen Drawings from the Notebooks
Also by Lori Ellison, Two Poems
In this harsh field of straw I kneel/ thrumming my lips with a wind-up angel// I am the one facing this/ worldly color glowing like murmuring/ embers/ that hold the grey in abeyance
Lagriffe Mboko, Three Paintings
William Draper, Song Lyrics
When all the birds stop singing/When all the people have stopped talking,/You may hear that faint bell ringing/You may be the undead walking.
Eddie Peters, Photos
