Red Hydra Press, Tuscaloosa, AL 2017. Edition of 60.

6 x 9.25; 32 pages. Typeface: Poliphilus. Designed and letterpress printed by Steve Miller. Binding designed by Anna Embree. Photographs printed at Puritan Press Inc. using a digital tritone process. Bound in maroon book cloth. Numbered. Signed by Miller and Sorrell. 

nails and bullets

by steve miller, photographs by david sorrell

“When I first saw David Sorrell's photographic figures they took me back to my early 20's. I was deeply passionate about poetry, art, books, architecture, landscape and nature - basically wildly interested in everything and not understanding how to channel it into something tangible... At the same time I was becoming fully aware of my attraction to men. I don't remember being confused or in denial about it. It just was, and it had a strong gravitational pull.

I recently found a briefcase full of things from that time in my life - 1973 - 1975. Letters, class notes, landscape plans, prose wonderings, and poems full of questions. In reading them I met the young man I was then, a boy who was thrilled, full of energy, and confused, but pulling the oars ahead through fog. Years later novelist Joseph Hansen sent me one of his books and inscribed it, 'At 16 I bent down to pick a flower, and when I stood up I was 60.' Instigated by encountering Sorrell's photos are words that come from an earlier life."  —Steve Miller

Many thanks to the photographic subjects Tyrel Bernardini and Joshua Sleutel, Nate Blanchard, Daniel Vanish, Cesar Melo, José, James Slingerland, Kei Ueda, and Alfonso Vargas.

Order from: Vamp and Tramp Booksellers.
Or reach out to Steve at Red Hydra Press.
Or contact me: David.

You'll find a lot of Steve's work at Vamp and Tramp, beautiful letterpress books and broadsides, by writers and poets like Billy Collins and Rodney Jones, and artists like Sigfredo Mendoza, Dana Moore, and Alejandro Sainz.