Before becoming a full-fledged press—well, we’ve only got the one book to our name as of yet, but more are in the pipes!—Avantexte began as an online journal of visual poetry, posting new visual-poetic works in the manner of a blog. But as time went on and our fascinations with print and typography grew, we realized we wanted to work with a different publishing model: one that would allow us to explore those fascinations, present the exciting material visual poets from around the world were sending us as we most wanted to see it presented, and to offer readers the chance to hold a bit of visual poetry in their hands.

Hence, the bleed::year one was born.

Our first year of publication proved a touch rocky as our lack of database management skills and a nefarious bug managed to wipe out the whole of our first several months of publications. We painstakingly went back and reposted all the fine work we’d received. But months later, that decision to change tack came, and with it the realization that our existing site design just couldn’t accommodate all our needs. So we selected a new look—and realized that it wouldn’t allow us to efficiently repost (yet again) the first year’s contributors.

The first edition of the bleed seeks to solve that problem by presenting the whole of our first year’s publishing efforts in a convenient (and, we believe, beautiful) digital and print magazine. You can view an online version of the bleed powered by iissuu and purchase a print edition through MagCloud.