Samuel Green Poet Laureate - Washington State Library

Brooding Heron Press & Jawbone Press Books at the Washington State Library

by Kathryn Hamilton-Wang, Northwest and Historical Collections Outreach
Coordinator at the Washington State Library

In addition to being a poet, Sam and his wife, Sally, run Brooding Heron Press on Waldron Island in the San Juans. The Washington State Library (WSL) has acquired books produced by this small specialty press for several years. WSL has been fortunate to acquire many signed and hand-bound and even one-of-a-kind copies produced by their press. Within the WSL online catalog, Brooding Heron Press and its precursor, Jawbone Press, are listed as author headings on these books to make them easy to find. If you do a search in the State Library’s online catalog, you’ll find that WSL has 36 Brooding Heron Press and 21 Jawbone Press titles.

The State Library has some one-of-a-kind items from the press such as:
Ten by Hand: [poems]. 2007.
This is a unique hand-bound volume of ten handwritten poems by ten different poets including Wendell Berry, Madeline De Frees, Tess Gallagher, Jan Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, and Gary Snyder.

Communion: Poems. 1992.
This book of poems by Samuel Green was published by Grey Spider Press; the State Library’s copy was the author’s personal copy and was bound at Brooding Heron Press. It includes a new poem in Green’s hand on the last page.

Other special copies owned by the Library include:
Melinda Mueller’s Asleep in Another Country: Poems produced by Jawbone Press in 1979, won a Governor’s Writer Award. The State Library’s rare copy is one of 60 copies signed by both the poet and binder.

Naomi Shihab Nye’s What Holds Us Up: Poems produced by Brooding Heron Press in 2000, is one of the 100 copies printed to celebrate the first Skagit Poetry Festival. The Library’s copy is “one of a handful of copies bound into boards” with marbled paper and is signed by the printer (Sally), binder (Sam), and author.

The Library also owns bibliographies of the titles produced by both presses plus a brief history.
Jawbone Press Bibliography: 1976-1982. 200?
Brooding Heron Press & Bindery: A Brief History. 2005
Brooding Heron Press Bibliography: Spring 2005. Covers 1986 to 2006 forthcoming.

All items listed are available for reading at the Washington State Library.