FLIGHT TEST by LEWIS WARSH

42. FLIGHT TEST. New York, NY: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2006. 5¾x7¾" 28 pages. (P)

Offset, pamphlet-sewn chapbook. Letterpress wraps printed in brown and violet. This book was designed, printed and bound in an edition of 300 at the Ugly Duckling Presse workshop in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The text is set in Baskerville, the titles in Copperplate Gothic Bold. The plates for the letterpress cover were furnished by Boxcar Press in Syracuse, NY. The first fifty copies of this book have been numbered and signed by the author.

“Another long poem, fifteen sections. My memories were catching up with me so that at any moment in the writing process some flicker of memory could intrude. Or “enter”—it seems they were mostly (always) welcome. Memories tend to make sense because they’re signs of something that really happened. They can happen (in your mind) at any moment. ‘Tootsie Roll wrappers and Bazooka gum’ is an obvious flash from childhood. I used to take long walks when I lived in Greenpoint—over to Williamsburg and Lorimer and Grand and Graham. ‘I stand at the crossroads, Our Lady/of the Snows.’ It was a church I saw on my way. The war in Iraq was happening—‘It’s just a matter of time before the bombs start exploding on crowded streets.’ And people I knew were dying:

It could be the last stop

if you don’t watch your step.

That’s how it ends.”