(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Why you should know who he is: As an experimental poet, book artist and fine press publisher, it is apparent that Kyle Schlesinger has a love for the written word. After coming to Buffalo to pursue a Ph.D. in English at UB, he created Cuneiform Press, a nonprofit publisher that specializes in handcrafted books. Through this venture he has published the works of many local poets, including his own and that of the late Robert Creeley. His most recent effort, Schablone Berlin—co-authored by local experimental filmmaker Caroline Koebel—is a study of the stencil graffiti culture of Berlin. Schlesinger and Koebel will host a free reading and book launch for Schablone Berlin tonight (March 9) at 7pm at Big Orbit Gallery (30 d Essex St.).

Hometown: Providence, Rhode Island.

Education: Bachelor of arts from Goddard University; Ph.D. in English with a concentration in poetics from State University of New York at Buffalo.

Why did you decide to start your own press? “Initially I guess it was DIY [do-it-yourself] politics and fascination with archaic or obsolete technologies. My advisor at Goddard showed me a handbill that he had printed for a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and explained to me that every single letter was pressed by hand. I got really excited about this, wanted to do it myself, and then about two months later I bought my own press. We pulled it into the school on a three-quarter-ton pickup truck and put it in a milking shed that was off campus. That basically gave me my own shop and let me become the director of the Goddard College Press.”

How does Cuneiform differ from that press? “There was a great deal of freedom to do whatever I wanted [at Goddard]. Then when I came to Buffalo, at Robert Creeley’s invitation, I decided to make it more exclusively a poetry press. I started doing chapbooks and broadsides for various readings in town and published a lot of local authors, as well as international. I kind of think of Cuneiform’s official home being Buffalo.”

What’s your favorite project that you’ve done? “I think the Book of Closings was one that really meant a lot to me. It was the first artist book I did. It used the correspondence between Robert Creeley and Irving Leighton, who have both passed on since I’ve done the project, so the idea of it being a book of closings has this other resonance now. But initially what I had done was gone through their complete correspondence and transcribed all the closings—‘see ya later,’ ‘best regards,’ ‘sincerely,’ etc.—and removed the author’s name. You get an idea of how the relationship evolved, from things that you would put in a business letter to things that almost sound like closings lovers would put at the end of their letters.”

What was your inspiration for Schablone Berlin? “I guess a number of different things sort of acting on each other. It’s collaboration, so it wasn’t solely my idea. But I had the idea before going to Berlin that I wanted to do something with vernacular lettering, and then focused in specifically on the stenciling.”

Do you have a favorite poet? “I’d say Creeley’s probably my favorite poet. I mean, he’s one of my favorite people. He changed my life dramatically by asking me to come here six or seven years ago.”

What was the last book you read? “Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle by Wallace Berman, Michael Duncan and Kristine McKenna.”

What are you currently working on? “I want to do a retrospective exhibition on the work of Piero Heliczer, who is a printer and a filmmaker and a poet, as well as a musician. I’m also writing a biblio-history of Asa Benveniste and the Trigram Press.”

What are your hopes for Cuneiform Press? “I hope that it will continue to grow and that more and more people will become involved. I’m also am in the process of creating an educational component online, so people who go to the Cuneiform Web site who have never made a book before but want to, for any purpose, could find some of the basic tools and online resources that would help them realize the project.”

What do you like best about Buffalo? “I guess it would be my friends and the arts organizations that continue to thrive. There’s all these fascinating individuals and resources that one couldn’t find anywhere else. I’m not even sure that in a more major metropolitan area that that exact confluence could exist.”

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