Sara Parkel, Filter Press, Brooklyn/Queens, NY

Sliver of Salt, 2008

Printed in edition of 50.

Sliver of Salt Is a bi-lingual letterpress printed edition with poems by Slovenian author, Ales Debeljak.
Translation by Andrew Zawacki and the author.

Size: 4 5/8" x 8 1/4"

Pamphlet-stitch, tri-fold accordion structure. Housed in a hand-sewn, natural linen bag with drawstring closure and letterpress label.
Covers soaked in salt water.

The book revolves around three poems: opening with
Hymn to the Favorite City—a melancholic poem thick with memory, an anchoring or beginning point. Next is the moment of transformation with Metamorphosis of Pain, which oscillates between that of consciousness and inevitability. Angels, Close Relatives completes the triad, with a sense of lapsed time and lightness in being.



Printed drawings of a sinking boat, birds in flight, and a jacket hovering off the pages edge echo the lucid qualities of the text while a hand drawn river that transforms into air, connects the sections from beginning to end.





It is the quality of Debaljak’s writing, the bending of words that give magical qualities to the ordinary, transforming and blending the real with the magical, encompassing the general with the self-reflective.





The book can be viewed as a codex style, page by page, or extended into the triptych/accordion form as three interacting sections. The book is intended to be viewed differently depending on the viewer. One can solely focus on the text, the illustrations, or a combination of the two like a multi-section exquisite corpse.

Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, 2007-2008

What to Count is a letterpress printed broadside with poem by Alise Alousi. 11" x 16"
Printed in 2007 for the Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Project.
Letterpress printed with linoleum and woodcut images, wood type, and polymer plates.

Current: Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Exhibition

May through July 28, 2008 at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts Florida Atlantic University Wimberly Library Jaffe Center for Book Arts Digital archive


On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Mutanabbi Street, the
centuries-old center of book selling in Baghdad. Soon afterwards, an
international group of poets, writers, artists, letterpress printers,
booksellers, and readers gathered to create the Mutanabbi Street
Coalition--in response not only to the tragedy of the 30 deaths and
100 injuries, but also to the idea of a targeted attack on a street
that has always been a place for the exchange of ideas.

The coalition’s goal was to respond to the tragedy with positive
creativity: by printing broadsides featuring the work of Iraqi poets
and supporting Doctors Without Borders––a non-profit agency working
to relieve suffering in Iraq and in other troubled areas of the
world––through the sales of these broadsides.





. . . even the birds were on fire . . ., 2001



Prayer Flag Edition. Edition of 6.




Paper edition of 150. Published in 2001.

A book of poetry fragments with a minute-to-minute timeline of the 9/11 events. With writing by Shane Beversdorf, Amy Ferrara, Sara Parkel, Esther Smith, and others.

F I L T E R P R E S S
Owner and proprietor of Filter Press (1994-present)
Exploring artist books, printmaking, and bookbinding.

This page is maintained by Marshall Weber.