This article appeared in the Somerville News.

I guess I could say the germ of the idea for the Ibbetson Street Press, started in a rather pedestrian location, Breuger's Bagels in Porter Square. For years my friend Richard Wilhelm and I had been meeting for breakfast there and toying with the idea of starting a press that would produce a poetry journal, and poetry chaps ( small booklets of poetry) on a periodic basis.I had long been a published poet, and Richard was an artist, and once a budding journalist in the 60's, before his jobs in the Human Services took up most of his time. At the same time my wife was ill, and I needed something to take our minds off our troubles.I remember walking into her hospital room on a gray winter's day and plastering a photo of a sign that read, IBBETSON STREET on the green institutional walls. I told her then, that this was the beginning of the IBBETSON STREET PRESS. I think she gave me a slightly patronizing smile, that indicated she felt that this was yet another hair-brained scheme that I cooked up, and was sure to be short-lived.Three years in the small press, is pretty damn old. Most "little" magazines ( by definition "little" is anything under a 5,000 press run), fold in their first few months. But I was determined to give a full throttle effort. With the help of a few friends, we printed up a few hundred fliers and distributed them to coffee houses, laundromats, supermarkets, bars,and mail boxes around Somerville, Cambridge and parts of Boston. We put ads in the local papers, and in other small magazines in the small press. It was a slow process, but eventually submissions started to trickle in. To be honest they were not always the highest caliber. Some were simplistically rhymed poems and others were homages to the poet's cat or hamster. But as time went on we collected a bunch of poetry we could be proud of, and we were ready to go to press.Our first issue's cover was a computer generated- enhanced sign that read IBBETSON STREET/SOMERVILLE AVE. It was based on Richard's photo and was jazzed up in living color by a computer, compliments of a co-worker at Cambridge City Hospital. We placed our seminal issue at many of the local bookstores, such as: Waterstone's in Boston (out of business), BookCellar in Cambridge-(out of business), McIntyre and Moore, Harvard Bookstore, and other independents. We sponsored readings around the area, and we even had a feature article in the SOMERVILLE JOURNAL.A real turning point was when the poetry editor of SPARE CHANGE ( a street newspaper in Cambridge and Boston),Don DiVecchio caught wind of our little publication. He was impressed by this grassroots journal, and the first chap we released, WAKING IN A COLD SWEAT, penned by none other than yours truly.Don called me on an early spring morning in 1999, and asked me if I could do a chap for him, entitled: EARTHSONG.DiVecchio is a well-known alternative poet and activist in the area, so we were intrigued by his offer. Richard and myself met him at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop outside of Inman Square, Cambridge. Both parties eyed each other like suspicious animals. Eventually we agreed to do his book. EARTHSONG, did well for a chap of poetry.It was reviewed in a number of small magazines such as: WHATS UP,POESY, and LUCID MOON. More importantly the release of this chap signaled the start of a cooperative effort with DiVecchio and SPARE CHANGE, and the subsequent growth of our poetry press.Since 1999 we have produced ten issues of the IBBETSON STREET poetry journal. In those issues we have published major poets like, A.D. Winans, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Jack Powers, Charles Coe, to lesser known but talented local and national poets.Another component of our bi-annual journal are interviews and articles. We have had interviews with poets, Ed Galing, Charles Coe, Robert K. Johnson, and a wonderful piece on the late Robert Lowell by Marc Widershien. In our last issue Rufus Goodwin contributed an article about the late Gloucester poet, Charles Olsen, and we had a book review of John Updike's latest poetry collection.In every issue Richard Wilhelm and Harold Cunniff have provided a veritable archive of illustrations and photos that pepper the publication.But the journal is not the only thing we are proud of. We have also produced a number of chaps and books, that have been distributed nationally, and have been reviewed and written about in such magazines and periodicals as the, BOSTON GLOBE, SOMERVILLE JOURNAL, CAMBRIDGE CHRONICLE,and JEWISH ADVOCATE. Our most recent releases have been the CITY OF POETS/18 BOSTON VOICES anthology and THE LIFE OF ALL WORLDS by Boston poet Marc Widershien. The CITY OF POETS... has sold hundreds of copies and I have appeared on cable television and radio, to promote it.This collection contains work by many local poets, such as Joanne Holdridge, Linda Haviland Conte, Dianne Robitaille, Richard Wilhelm and Sue Sullivan. THE LIFE OF ALL WORLDS was released this summer, and we have had readings around the area. The book is a poetic memoir of Boston, and we think it is an important historical and lyrical work.Some of our books are archived at Harvard University, Brown University, Boston Public Library, and the Univ.of Buffalo Library. We have recieved endorsements from the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Howard Zinn. I don't think Richard, Dianne(my wife), and myself expected any of this when we knocked it around over bagels.But I think the reason it went so well was because of the community of folks we met, who have given their time, without monetary compensation. Few poetry presses make any money, and in my case I have lost money every year. But I say this with no reservation...it has been worth every cent I put into it.----Doug Holder* This article appeared in the Somerville News.