Pre-Order Ink & Ribbon's Debut Book today.
Sesquipedalian Rain Chant by Brooks Lampe
Today, I’m sharing two poems from Sesquipedalian Rain Chant by Brooks Lampe — and opening pre-orders for Ink & Ribbon Press’s first publication.
It moves through a year shaped by rain, language, and attention. The poems begin in September, echoing the ecclesiastical calendar, and travel toward renewal. Rain appears not as scenery but as pressure — dissolving certainty, interrupting habit, and returning the speaker to first questions: love, faith, labor, speech.
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Domestic life and ancient voices move side by side here. Saints and philosophers step into kitchens and classrooms. Weather presses against windows. Marriage, teaching, longing, and doubt coexist without resolution.
Sesquipedalian Rain Chant is the debut publication of Ink & Ribbon Press and the first full collection by Brooks Lampe.
This edition is intentionally limited:
250 copies in the standard perfect bound edition
3 fine art editions produced by McCall Bindery
Once these copies are gone, this edition is gone.
Pre-ordering matters. It allows us to move confidently into print, supports the press’s nonprofit model, and directly funds the publication of future poets. Ink & Ribbon exists to publish slowly and responsibly — and reader commitment makes that possible.
If these poems resonate with you, I hope you’ll consider reserving a copy.
👉 »Pre-Order Here«
Below are two poems from the collection.
Sesquipedalian Rain Chant
the world is a museum brimming full of gems almost too full turning dark with color beyond our miracle eyes sun shoots the earth with serein light we convulse inside with regular convulsions that seem beyond us and in the floor we become ultracrepidarians aimlessly wandering faculty halls calibrating our most exquisite selves to some important moment of faith we will be tested our souls kneaded for bibliopole truth some creeping thing does not want us to blow our flutes of joy it’s bonkers! don’t you know we live in a perfect circle called Oregon it starts with O leans again penultimately on O and raises our flesh each January in petrichoral hallelujah some master-artisan has left us a beautiful house to indwell to make us put on our waterproof boots
Sappho
Come, Sappho, with wings darting through air toward crumbling mass of rock and water we call Sky. “Do for me whatever I desire.” What a wish! So long ago imagined, seed of the world speaking wisdom. Next spring a feeling comes, born of opposites: cold sweat, thin fire. All of us have felt it. That’s why we know Sirach’s right: A soul heated by a fire will not be quenched until it’s consumed. Lovers won’t rest til the end of the world, starlight reaching for the boundless in rays that never return. You, Sappho, range the halls, your life force circling toward dust. Kingdoms make war and husbands return, but you’re off exploring planets’ tender glow. Begin now with me on a rainy day like this at autumn’s door.



Exciting news!!! Congratulations on the debut 🎉🥳