The Private Presses of New Mexico

Tooth of Time Books

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John Brandi’s Tooth of Time press took its name from a northern New Mexico rock formation and its inspiration from a hermit named Johnny Lovewisdom. In the mid 1960s, Brandi, a Peace Corps volunteer and an aspiring poet, met Lovewisdom in Ecuador, where the expatriate was producing a philosophical newsletter on an aged mimeograph machine. Lovewisdom, who met the challenge of producing his newsletter in the primitive setting, urged Brandi not to wait for publishers to discover his work but to print it himself.

By 1973 the young poet had his own Rotary Neostyle hand operated mimeograph machine on which he launched Tooth of Time Books in a cabin near Guadalupita, New Mexico. From these modest beginnings Brandi's operation grew into a nationally recognized poetry press and continues on a smaller scale today.

A Nothing Book Only the Ashes On Mountains Breath
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palace_press Tooth of Time Books Rydal Press Revival Amaranth Press Running Women Press Desert Rose Press Weaselsleeves Press

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