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)