Poetry & Music Beyond the Digital: The Bodily Press

6 hours ago

4 min read

Photo of Eliot Cardinaux by poet Denver Butson

Amidst the general feelings of uneasiness and chaos emerging from the 2016 election, Eliot Cardinaux founded The Bodily Press. As the founding editor, book designer, and entrepreneur he works to publish poetry and music to audiences all around the world.

In the past two years, the press has released 31 books and albums, many of which were first publications for chap books and eps alike. Others are already recognized like Nathaniel Mackey, a national book award winner, who released “By Bent Light" with Bodily Press. This is one example of the many brilliant works and authors/musicians selected.

Cardinaux describes a potent feeling of disillusionment emerging from the disappearance of physical media, paired with an increasing skepticism of the digital world. He has a bachelor’s degree in contemporary improvisation from the New England Conservatory in Boston. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that the internet was as difficult to trust as it was ubiquitous,” he said. While he had written poetry on his own for 6 years prior, it was not until he met Ruth Lepson, a poet in residence at the conservatory, that his interest fully blossomed. Cardinaux began to realize a world for poetry was taking shape in his mind.

The Bodily Press is a loyal outlet for artists pushing boundaries in the written and spoken word, sound, music, & other media.

In 2018, The Bodily Press broadened its horizons and began operating as a record label as well, after Cardinaux released his first solo album on CD, “Sweet Beyond Witness,” that included piano compositions, and spoken word. His most recent album “The Furies” was recorded at the Northfire Recording Studio in February 2026, which included many elements from his first album. This care for the art of the spoken word comes from his knowledge “everything was becoming digitized, I wanted to create a place where physical media was still a thing”.

Some publications outside of the founder's work that are of the utmost excitement are:

Andrew Mossin’s Drafts for Shelley. In the words of Elliot he’s particularly excited about this book as an editor and book designer. This 7 x 10 inch book features a beautiful coated cover and images from Percy Shelley’s handwritten notebooks, alongside Mossin’s “translations” and responses to those texts.

Joseph Simas’ Shuffle (Introducing—Anime Titles) is a hybrid experimental work about, straddling poetry, screenplay, and prose narrative forms.

Sarah Menefee’s chapbook rouge features quick, sharp street-level lyrics inspired by her work with the unhoused population of her native San Francisco.

Adam Stutz’s Days After follows the aftermath of the death of the poet’s father, tracing neurodivergent circles of grief throughout three longer sections of spare lyrics.

Two recent albums featuring sound design by downtown NY experimental vocalist and improviser Ellen Christi also appeared this year as chapbooks by their respective poets with CD inserts of the albums in question, one featuring poetry and improvisations by world-renowned trombonist Steve Swell, and the other by The Red Microphone, featuring the poetry of New York City Jazz Record staff writer, and all around post-punk leftist, John Pietaro, and his partner Laurie Towers on fretless bass.

After earning a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Cardinaux brought together a network of poets and began printing their work as chapbooks, eventually publishing full length paperbacks. He has created a space that prioritizes the tangible and the love for free expression.

While the press sells their inventory mainly at performances and readings at venues like Amherst Books, Unnameable Books in Turners Falls,MA, and the New England Visionary Artists Museum in Northampton, they also sell online on their website: www.bodilypress.com and on the music streaming platform Bandcamp. They have just applied to start selling their books to Asterism which would make these titles more accessible as well as widespread. To learn more, visit Instagram@thebodilypress

The Bodily Press will have a wide variety of their publications for sale, celebrating a diversity of styles, at the Northampton Book Fair, including but not limited to:

Maged Zaher: Illness
Martha McCollough: I Woke Up for This
Joseph Simas: Shuffle (Introducing—Anime Titles)
Michael Schuffler: Mascot Anastasia (prone as snowmen)
Michael Augustin: How It Goes (translated from the German by the author and Sujata Bhatt).
Steve Swell & Ellen Christ: Songs From the Poetry Box
Jill Stengel: tend
Eliot Cardinaux: If Not for You
Adam Stutz: Days After
Sarah Menefee: rouge
The Red Microphone & Ellen Christi: Scarlet Streets (Poetry of John Pietaro)
Niamh Timmons: An Uncouth Desire

By Bent Light, a chapbook by National Book Award winner Nathaniel Mackey
The Palestinian Freedom Now Suite, a full-length poetry collection, also in paperback, by New Orleans-based poet of the Palestinian/Lebanese diaspora Paul Catafago
David Need's retrospective poetry book, Broken Windows, about a spiritual crisis he lived through in his 20s in the Connecticut River Valley
Red Tide at Sandy Bend, an ecopoetic chapbook by Ithaca NY poet Mary Gilliland
To Umber, a book of miniature poems by Nigerian poet Uche Nduka
Elbow Sugar, a poetry collection by local musician Deja Carr (AKA Mal Devisa)

We hope to see you at the Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley Street, Northampton at the Northampton Book Fair on November 20th, 5 - 8pm and November 21st, 10am - 4pm.