Stones Watch in Silence, by David Steingass
First edition soft cover, 250 copies
72 pages (80lb Natural Cougar Opaque Smooth), 6″ x 9″; illustrated with 20 black and white photographs (full bleed: 16 photos by Brent Nicastro, others by Stephanie Edwards, Michael Koppa, and Al Harris); designed by The Heavy Duty Press and printed by Bookmobile in Minneapolis, MN; perfect bound with matte finish, soft touch laminated cover. ISBN 979-8-9893902-3-6
THESE POEMS
start with the one stone
you like enough to keep. Pick me,
its shape says, its color and size,
the way the stone nests in your pocket
or floats in the shallow pool
of your open hand. Crazy,
how you stand clutching
this one stone you see
suddenly prove everything.
(bookstores please inquire for wholesale pricing)
The Heavy Duty Press is honoured to publish Mr Steingass’s tenth book of poems, Stones Watch in Silence, featuring 18 new poems touching hot button issues of geology, such as deep time, fossilization, and continental drift.
David Steingass is a well established composer of accessible, vernacular poetry, with his first book of poems, Body Compass, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1969, followed by American Handbook in 1972. Fishing for Dynamite, published by Red Dragonfly Press in 1995, saw two editions. The Heavy Duty Press published Native Son at Home in 2000, featuring the six “guidebook” sections from GreatPlains: A Prairie Lovesong, an epic book length poem published by Red Dragonfly Press in 2002.
David’s poems reflect his farmstead childhood of draft horses and party line telephones, as well as incorporating black hole technology, the speed of light, and a continuing fascination with the natural world and the foibles of the humans who occupy it. He lives and writes in Madison, Wisconsin.
For further insight, you might enjoy reading An Interview with David Steingass, published online by Yahara Prairie Lights.
Forthcoming
An additional limited edition of 20 hard cover copies have been printed and bound by Grimm Book Bindery in Madison, Wisconsin. At the moment, those copies are waiting for dust jackets to be printed by The Heavy Duty Press on Spiffy the Vandercook from engraved granite tiles on Stonehenge paper. Price will be $200 per copy. Estimated completion date is end of September, 2025.
Please inquire now to reserve a copy (or copies).
In addition to these digitally printed collections of poems, The Heavy Duty Press will hand set and print a limited edition artist’s book featuring the poem Stacking Dry Stone Walls. Price and edition size to be determined. Estimated completion date: end of October 2025. Again, you may inquire now to reserve a copy (or copies).