In late 1979, James Sherry decided to end the run of ROOF magazine and begin ROOF books. Controlling Interests was the first title of the press, which continues on, active as ever. Our first problem was funding –– I remember writing letters to everyone I could think of -- relatives and old friends but not fellow poets -- and realizing the fundraising was not my forté. One way or another, we cobbled together the money for the typesetting, which was done be Skeezo (Barbara Barg, Joel Chassler) and for the offset printing. I remember one day James and I going into a print shop in Chelsea to look through the PMS color chart to decide on the color of the type-only cover: a very dark blue (which we changed to turquoise for the second edition). Back cover: totally blank. James has kept the book in print these past 34 years and you can still get the print edition from SPD for $12 (I think the first edition sold for $4 or $5).
Cinq le Choeur, Anne-Marie Albiach's collected poems, 1966-2012 has just been published by Poésie/Flammarion. This magnificent 600-page collection of one of the signal achievements of postwar French poetry, includes an afterword by Isabelle Garron and cover by Claude Royet-Journoud.
In Conjunctions 23 (1994), I published a reworking of Albiach's "Travail Vertical et Blanc": pdf. & here is the original poem, from the new collected (reprinted with permission): pdf .