2) Please tell us about you as a publisher and also a little about some of the books you have produced by poets who will read at POW!

I knew Ed Carson at the University of Toronto in the late 1960s. Scenes (1977) was one of the first dozen books I published. Ed Carson subsequently distinguished himself as a publishing executive with Random House, Harper-Collins, Simon&Schuster and Penguin Canada. Taking Shape (2008) is his second collection of poetry.

Ken Sherman's Black River was acquired by Eric Ormsby (PQL poetry editor before he moved to England and was succeeded by Wayne Clifford). The title is particularly interesting for the inclusion of George Raab's etchings which underscore the sense of a canoe trip on the river.

JonArno Lawson was attracted to PQL because he saw A Brazilian Alphabet for the Younger Reader by P K Page that we had published in 2005. A Voweller's Bestiary was the first title edited for PQL by Wayne Clifford.

3) When did you start out as a publisher?

I started working in publishing in 1971. I started my own company, with my wife Elke, in 1974

4) What prompted you to do that?

I was frustrated, as a printer and as a book designer, with the production "standards" (or lack thereof) that were prevalent in Canada in the early 1970s. The House of Anansi, certainly, and TalonBooks on the west coast, were seminal to the development of a uniquely CANADIAN publishing industry, but looking back on some of those early efforts reminds me that the production standards were, really, embarrassing. Which served neither authors, readers, or publishers well at all.

5) Can you describe (a little) your process in selecting/editing a new book?

The role of "book publisher" is somewhat elastic, as each individual reinterprets the job description, given their unique strengths, and weaknesses. In my case, my strengths are in administration, design and production. I do a little acquisitions, but for the most part I rely on a group of acquisition editors whose opinions I trust.

Wayne Clifford, for example, is my poetry acquisitions editor. Wayne is retired, and lives on Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy, but in the mid-1960s Wayne was the very first acquisitions editor for Stan Bevington's Coach House Press, where Wayne "discovered" the then-unknown Michael Ondaatje.

Wayne edited A Voweller's Bestiary by JonArno Lawson, that JonArno will present at the POW! Festival.

6) What inspires you when you are pursuing your art in the technical aspects of book production?

Robert Bringhurst, in The Surface of Meaning: Books and Book Design in Canada, has identified me as the most celebrated (43 citations) book designer in Canada over the past three decades. What inspires me? My peers, surely. Gordon Robertson, Glenn Goluska, Andrew Steeves. The inspiring work they produce. But it's mostly about me. The technology is constantly changing, which constantly presents new opportunities, and new challenges. I have produced close to a thousand titles over 35 years. I can't remember one, of those, that I NOW think couldn't have been done better.

I remember a collection of etchings called Looking for Snails on a Sunday Afternoon, that I published in 2004. The artist and I fought, tooth & nail, for months on the production. When it was done, I was disappointed. Then the book got an honourable mention from the Alcuin Society. And then it was shortlisted as one of the fifty Most Beautiful Books of the World in the Leipzig competition, one of only three titles from Canada to make the cut that year. I am still disappointed. I think I could have done better. I think I SHOULD have done better.

This is what inspires me. The certainty that no matter what I do, or don't do, I really should have done better. And I could've. dammit.

7) The POW! Festival is built on the notion that poetry should not be relegated to an existence as a niche art form that the average person doesn't care about. How do you respond to that?

I can think of a couple of amusing anecdotes that might speak to the question. Professionally, though, we have just recently launched a series of "Essential Poets" that makes very small (64 page) selections of a poet's VERY best work available in well designed, printed & bound editions at affordable ($12.95) prices.

I have hopes that The Essential PK Page (for example) may attract a significant course adoption market.