Hiraeth Press 2010 Catalog

Letter from the Press

Hiraeth.  Why choose such a strange and for­eign word for the name of a pub­lishing com­pany?  The Welsh word hiraeth encap­su­lates the spirit by which we strive and that the books we pub­lish hope to inspire.  A direct trans­la­tion of the word might be some­thing like “longing,” though a more lit­erary reading and a look at its role in medieval Welsh poetry reveals that it is a deep longing of the soul for one’s orig­inal home­land.

Here at Hiraeth Press we believe that our col­lec­tive human home­land are the still-​​wild places of the Earth.  We long for a more eco­log­i­cally and spir­i­tu­ally sane world and believe pas­sion­ately that poetry is a form of activism on behalf of the more-​​than-​​human world.  Our mis­sion states:

We are pas­sionate about cre­ativity as a means of trans­forming con­scious­ness, both indi­vid­u­ally and socially.  We hope to par­tic­i­pate in a rev­o­lu­tion to return poetry to the public dis­course and a place in the world which mat­ters.  Of the many impor­tant issues of our times we feel that our rela­tion­ship to the envi­ron­ment is of the most fun­da­mental con­cern.  Our pub­li­ca­tions reflect the ideal that falling in love with the earth is nothing short of rev­o­lu­tionary and that through our rela­tion­ship to nature we can birth a more enlight­ened vision of life for the future.  We believe that art and poetry are the uni­versal lan­guage of the human expe­ri­ence and are thus most capable of trans­forming our vision of self and world.

The vol­umes in our 2010 Catalog reflect this longing.  In hopes that you too will par­tic­i­pate in this trans­for­ma­tion toward a spir­i­tu­ally and eco­log­i­cally sus­tain­able future we offer a number of vol­umes to inspire you and lure you toward a love affair with your own wild places, be they in the world or in the soul.  Though the selec­tion is small it is rich.  With your sup­port we hope to con­tinue to pub­lish books and poems to awaken hearts and minds.  Read on under your favorite tree.

Yours from the estuary,
Jason Kirkey
Founder, Hiraeth Press

View the 2010 Hiraeth Press Catalog (Requires Adobe Reader)