Kirpan Press

Glad you are visiting this storefront. I represent Alan Horvath, Cleveland/San Francisco/Vancouver (Washington State) poet and publisher who over 40 years published his own poetry and poetry of others under Falling Down Press (Cleveland), Mostly Broken Scabs Press (Cleveland and San Francisco, FUCK IF I KNOW press (San Francisco) and Kirpan Press (Vancouver, WA). After being introduced to the d.a. levy's "Poem for Julie" in 9th grade, he started researching d.a. levy and those poets in the Cleveland scene. In the late 90s, he began his reprint series "d.a. levy (Random Sightings) including the 2-volume "Looking for d.a. levy - the d.a. levy Bibliography, of d.a levy's poetry, artwork and concrete publications he edited with Kent Taylor. As some of you know, Alan Horvath died in 2010 after dealing the chronic health conditions. As "Employee #2" of Kirpan Press, I assisted him in the printing, collating, stapling and mailing of his Kirpan books. I continued filling orders for books and, 13 years after his death, I became a vendor on ABE. AS AN INTRODUCTION... It all started by stapling posters to telephone poles all over Cleveland/Akron/Kent/Ashland/etc. asking for submissions of any kind. What followed was interesting mail at my post office box (inside the Federal Building in Cleveland Ohio) for years and years. I compiled, typed and printed almost every single page that was generated. I collated and bound every copy - except Wallpaper which was professionally padded. All silkscreens and most woodblock artwork was done by Mike Schaefer. Richard Werner created individual paintings for each copy of a number of publications. Dave Pishnery helped with the bag of poetry on the inside back cover of White Heap 01. Lending moral support and a blues harmonica was Rich Pike during the early years. Books were sold locally in Cleveland at Moonshine Coffeehouse, Coventry Books, Jim Lowell's Asphodel Bookshop and at poetry nights at Bobby McGee's bar. All prices were artificial (50c, 75c, $1). I never charged for the paper or the time it took to print the book. Everything that was created was done with the bent urgency that the publication had to exist so that other people could be exposed to it. With those ground rules, I never applied for any government grant or funding, although someone by the name of Jerome Frank Slezak sent me $20 a few times (even though I never met him). This is why I had $12.67 to my name (12/31//76). I'm not sure the bookstores realized that human hands produced these publications. Somewhere I still have a postcard from Coventry Books asking for 50 MORE copies of Cleveland going home (HOT FUCK). Yeah, like I could bend over and shit out a new batch. The colleges that had "subscriptions" were Brown University, Simon Fraiser University (Canada), University of New York at Buffalo and Akron University. Whenever they would ask for an account number, I would give them "4Q2SLURP' OR 4Q2YEAHYEAHYEAH" which would appear on a official state check.