Episode 14: Caryl Pagel - “The Text is the Site of That Relationship”

We finally sit down with Caryl Pagel (director of the CSU Poetry Center) and talk about her other job as publisher of Rescue Press. Caryl sheds light on the idea of “generative publishing” and on her approach to editing as a dynamic, open-ended process, a site of relation and the possibilities of form. We hear about starting a press maybe because you have a coupon at Kinko’s, and the contributions of Rescue’s whole Midwestern team: Daniel Khalastchi, Sevy Perez, and Alyssa Perry, as well as IforC’s own Hilary Plum and “the other Zach” (Zach Savich). Along the way we explore how to be both professional and a person and how professionalism may need both at once.  

A few of the Rescue Press books mentioned: Marc Rahe’s The Smaller Half, Shane McCrae’s In Canaan, Anne Germanacos’s Tribute, Caren Beilin’s SPAIN, Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom. Also Zach Savich’s Events Film Cannot Withstand and Diving Makes the Water Deep. 

Caryl’s recent books are Free Clean Fill Dirt (poetry) and Out of Nowhere Into Nothing (essays). Read a great new essay on Lorine Niedecker and Lake Superior here.