The Chinese character for poetry is made up of two parts word and temple. It also serves as pressmark for Copper Canyon Press.

About Us

Our History and Mission

Copper Canyon Press is a nonprofit publisher that believes poetry is vital to language and living. Since 1972, the Press has published poetry exclusively and has established an international reputation for its commitment to authors, editorial acumen, and dedication to the poetry audience.

Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both revered and emerging American poets, translations of classical and contemporary work from many of the world's cultures, re-issues of out-of-print poetry classics, anthologies, and prose books about poetry.

Copper Canyon has published more than 350 titles, including works by Nobel Laureates Pablo Neruda, Odysseas Elytis, Octavio Paz, Vincente Aleixandre, and Rabindranath Tagore; Pulitzer Prize-winners Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, W.S. Merwin, and Theodore Roethke; National Book Award winners Hayden Carruth, Lucille Clifton, and Ruth Stone; and some of the most original contemporary poets and translators such as Jim Harrison, C.D. Wright, Red Pine, Norman Dubie, Eleanor Wilner, Arthur Sze, and Lucia Perillo.

The Press has an active fundraising program; approximately fifty percent of annual revenues are contributed. Major funders have included Lannan Foundation, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Washington State Arts Commission, Humanities Washington, the Mellon Foundation, the Breneman-Jaech Foundation, the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, the Starbucks Foundation and Port Townsend Paper Company. The Press is also supported by hundreds of individual donors from fifty states.

Like many arts organizations, Copper Canyon Press was launched with abundant passion and vision by a few dedicated individuals. Sam Hamill, Tree Swenson, and other associates founded Copper Canyon Press in Denver, Colorado, after relocating from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where Hamill had received an award for editing the best college literary magazine in the nation. Using the $500 prize money, Hamill and Swenson, along with Jim Gautney and Bill O'Daly, bought printing equipment in 1972 and began work on the first book, which came out in 1973.

In 1974, Hamill and Swenson moved Copper Canyon Press to Port Townsend, Washington, where it established a permanent residency with Centrum, a nonprofit arts agency, at Fort Worden State Park. In its early years in Port Townsend, the Press issued mostly small editions, providing broader distribution for the work of new and well established writers. In 1983, the Press suspended the publication of the hand-bound, letter-pressed limited editions in order to concentrate fully on producing and marketing trade books that would maintain the highest possible standards of typography and design. In 1990, Copper Canyon became a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, created a Board of Directors, and began receiving financial support from individuals and foundations.

Today, Copper Canyon Press comprises a community devoted to the power of poetry in our lives& poets, readers, volunteers, funders, booksellers, librarians, professors, reviewers, colleagues, interns, board, and staff who share a conviction that a good poem sharpens our appreciation of the world, invigorates the language, and nourishes the soul. Because of this community the Press has survived and thrived for nearly forty years. Please join us.

We believe poetry is vital to language and living.

As the preeminent independent publisher of poetry, Copper Canyon Press fosters the work of emerging, established, and world-renowned poets for an expanding audience.

History & Mission