Song for the Small Hours

This book comprises a single, simple poem, intended as a lullaby for a lover.

Song for the Small Hours is an answer across time to the poet W.S. Merwin’s words in To a Friend, Travelling: “this is like one of those letters / written on a mountain / in China more than / a thousand years ago… so many of those / unsigned and never sent / as far as we know.”

This elegant limited edition from Incline Press gives the concise text ample space, and is designed for slow, considered reading. As the publisher Graham Moss writes: “It was an issue of some importance among private presses in the 1930s, expressed and addressed in passing by Frances Meynall of the Nonsuch Press: if poetry is better read slowly for sense, rhythm and understanding, how can the publisher assist by designing a book that slows the reader?”

Song for the Small Hours was first published in The Spectator magazine in 2022.

book details

Incline Press, 2023. Letterpress-printed edition of 140 signed copies, 80 on Zerkall paper and the balance on hand-made paper from the Two Rivers mill in Somerset.  The poem and title page use Baskerville types, the introduction and colophon are set in Bell. Non-adhesive binding using a heavy card from Two Rivers, each copy sewn onto vellum strips from antique legal documents.