Simon Cutts is a poet, printer and publisher and the thread of continuity that runs through the legendary Coracle Press. The Small Press Model is a collection of more-or less short prose pieces, many of them occasional and previously published, some new, all of them concerned one way or another with the question of publication in all its various forms. Cutts’ overall approach, and the philosophy that lies behind Coracle, might be best summed up by the following quote from one of the last pieces in this book, a note on the work of artist Peter Downsbrough: ‘I am always amazed at the simplicity of devices in the construction of his work, the home-madeness that leads to such an abstraction and austerity of the finished work.’
That sense of the hand-made, the austere and simple is, I think, what characterises Cutts’ philosophy of publication; the idea of the published thing as an object fitted to its primary purpose and taking its place in a world of objects, is central to his practice (along with his various Coracle partners) and to this book.
The book also reminds us of his very inclusive definition of what constitutes publication. Yes, there are lots of books, but a Coracle Press publication can be a single page of printer (or blank) paper, a gatefold, a book, a catalogue, an exhibition, a building or the monumental resin on concrete publication of his A History of the Airfields of Lincolnshire that graces the cover of The Small Press Model.
Crucially, for Cutts, publication is a physical experience. This might mean a concern with the qualities of paper:
“I suddenly realised that I was interested in the transparency of sheets of paper and variable lines of coloured type.”
or, as an extension, the physical qualities of traditional print processes or the frequent examples of books and other physical objects being a continuum; again, A History of the Airfields of Lincolnshire is a good example, having started life as a book before becoming a monumental presence. In some cases, the resolution is to print as a book the imprints of physical objects pressed into paper. The sense of continuum is expressed most clearly in the opening to a piece called A Concertina of Concertinas, the concertina in question being folded card publications:
“The concertina-form is always with us, and when opened, quietly presents its facets to the world. Packed away in a box or stacked more awkwardly, standing almost closed on the bookshelf, it may genuinely be the closest to sculpture in a reductive way that the printed artefact ever comes.”
This ability to see the sculptural in a piece of folded card is intrinsic to the Coracle way.
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The book consists of three loosely thematic sections, the first section shares a title with the book as a whole and is the longest of the three. It consists primarily of a set of essays and notes that form a loose history of Coracle from its roots Tarasque Press to now. It is, crucially, a history of collaborative making, highlighting the roles of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Stuart Mills, Erica van Horn and many others in what Coracle is and has achieved. It is also a rich sourcebook for anyone interested in the history and development of concrete and minimalist poetries in Britain since the 1950s.
The second section, ‘Equivalent Spaces’, discusses the importance of formats, from concertinas to bookshops, in the act of publication. The final section, ‘Particular Dislocations’, focuses mainly on named individuals, and in the nature of time, contains a number of pieces that could be obituaries. The piece on Peter Downsbrough I quote from in the first paragraph of this review is found in this section. Finally, there is a comprehensive and extremely useful Bibliography of Coracle publications by year, focusing on printed artefacts only.
For anyone interested in the history of small presses, this is a vitally important and alive book which I cannot recommend too highly.
Elliptical Movements 
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