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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.

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Below are two poems from the collection.

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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

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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.