Bricks: A New Book of Poems by Daniel X. O’Neil was the first book published by Juggernaut in December 1992. Since it was our first book, we wanted it to be plain and not overreach. No decoration.
Jonny Stepping designed the spreads of the book with a simple innovation– the page on the left is justified to the right and the page on the right is justified to the left. This way the book gravitates to and emanates from the center bottom of the spreads, growing out from the pages in an unadorned fashion, making their own form.
We made 1,000 copies of the book. The cover price was $10. It is sold out, with just a few savers left in our personal collections. Each book is hand-numberd xxx/1000. Every now and then we come across some in used book stores that we can reclaim, but not as many as Memo To All Employees because we gave out many fewer review copies. We applied ISBN stickers retroactively after we published Memo To All Employees, so most copies do not have an ISBN.
Sample pages
Table of contents
We Would Not Sit Quiet With Our Languages at Stake
Fire At J.D. Salinger’s House!
Australopithecus Afarensis
The New
CEO Poet
Poem (Spider)
Apologia
Regional Warlord Song
What I Believe
May 90
Drill Press Operator
Citizen
Optimism
Poem (William Shakepeare)
Peace Speech
Hurricane Love
Poem (Fetal Tissue)
The Death of Book
Episode From A Revolt
I Think And Speak In Cliches of The Future
Upon Viewing “The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe…”
Prayer
Verbcrime
Declaration of Intent
Love Song of the Ancients
Weather
Man Poet With Axe Speaks to Women
The Skins of Wisconsin
Cause of Death
Kosovo Diary
Fluid Resistance
Poem (for my brother Patrick)
Found Poem
An Order from God in Heaven
Blue Stone Rising
Journey of the Placebo
Warning from the President, Talking to Himself
5:15 on the V.I. Lenin
Holsum Bread Truck Driver
Antidote of the Beekeepers
Nature
Chant of an American’s Last Leg
Courage of the Maker in One Neck of Woods