A German immigrant, Rosemarie Waldrop and her husband, Keith started Burning Deck Press when they were graduate students at the University of Michigan. The couple met in Germany, where translating poems in German to English “really brought [them] together.” She has more than 20 published books and has won several awards for her own work as well as her translations, such as the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award and the title of “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” (Knight of Arts and Letters) from the government of France.
Poetry Reading at the Kelly Writers House (November 6, 2014)
Burning Deck
The name was inspired by Felicia Hemans poem “Casabianca,” about the son of a captain who goes down with the ship because his father told him not to leave the wheel until his father returned. Unbeknownst to the boy, his father is dead. According to Waldrop, “a burning deck seemed to us an appropriate image for poetry. And standing at the press cranking out pages I often felt like crying out “Papa, must I stay!” Waldrop was responsible for printing and proofreading the magazine. When Burning Deck transitioned to printing chapbooks instead of a magazine, Waldrop became an editor. The couple taught at universities; however, Waldrop “taught only occasionally after 1970,” leaving her husband with “the steady job.”
Before the magazine, Burning Deck Press published a poetry anthology entitled The Wolgamot Interstice (1961). In Fall 1962, the Burning Deck magazine began and ran for three more issues: one in Spring 1962, one in Fall 1963, and a final issue in Spring 1965. The Waldrops hosted collating parties, during which friends and fellow students helped them assemble the magazine. In 1967, the press published its first chapbook. The press was born in New York, moved to Connecticut (which coincided with the shift from producing magazines to producing chapbooks), then settled in Providence, RI. In 1974, Burning Deck’s first full-length book was published. These books were printed using a computer, whereas the magazine and chapbooks were printed using a Chandler and Price platen press.
On the 4 Trains Cover
There were some instances where we did things you weren’t supposed to be able to do in letterpress. I am still proud of my cover for Jackson Mac Low’s 4 Trains, for which I made an assemblage of the numerals 1-4 in all different sizes and headed in all 4 directions. It was very difficult to keep the smaller numerals from falling out, but it was worth it.
