death of workers whilst building skyscrapers, Lucy Wilkinson

This book is my way of showing respect to the legacy of human spirit behind the little magazines, ephemeral poets, and the poetics of survival that have come before and exist now. I insist that self-expression is not only a creative act, but an act of spiritual survival in an increasingly corrupt and delusive world.
 

In June 2018, I founded the publishing press, death of workers whilst building skyscrapers. On March 8th 2020, my father passed away from a twelve-year long terminal illness. My mum and I stopped speaking. On December 5th 2021, my partner of thirteen years ended our relationship. My best friend and I stopped speaking. In my isolation, amidst this rubble, I tried to operate a publishing press, teach and heal. At times, I was spending emotional labour that I really did not have for others, but did anyway out of survival to not only make a living but, also to connect myself to the world.
 

Told through fragments, memoir, essays, poetry and epistolary reflection, death of workers whilst building skyscrapers is an intimate account of a small publishing press born in a small one-bedroom flat in Manchester. Woven from memory, poetry, family history, and political critique, it explores what it means to make books by hand while navigating abandonment, grief, illness, heartbreak, in the resonance of working-class histories.
 
 
This book is dedicated to the grieving woman.
 

Dr. Lila Matsumoto describes: ‘If publishing is an embodiment of the political and material structures in which we live, then this book dreams and makes manifest new forms to bring to light the hidden practice and history of small press publishing. A wholly original exploration and embodiment of small press’s marginal, tangential, and anecdotal strategies, this book melds original research with memoir to situate small press publishing within the larger picture of emotional and material labour. I was moved by this rich and affecting book and its insights into the affordances of creative writing, friendship, and bookmaking.’