Today was a day for Poetry. Panda poetry that  is.

For the sixth year in a row, I took PS 321’s poetry magazine, Pandamonium, to the printer. We always have to get it there the first week of April so that it will be printed and delivered to the school by the first week of May.

It’s always a relief when I (with one of my co-editors) take the file to the printer.
Phew. It signals the end of a very laborious process.
Pandamonium, a parent/teacher/student collaboration, is a 64-page, 11-by-17 inch magazine that features one poem from every child in the school.

That’s nearly 1,300 poems.
The poems are written by the kids during the monnth of May, which is poetry month at PS 321. During the following summer, the poems are typed by twelve or more parent-typists.
In the fall, parent-graphic designers work on the layout. Later, parents are enlisted to proof read and scan artwork.

For printing, we use JNB Printing and Litho, a commercial printing shop in Sunset Park. John, the ownerm has obviously been in the printing business for ages. A real perfectionist, he has an amazing eye and a great memory. He has seen the business change a great deal over the years as computers took over but he’s managed to stay in the game. He’s been printing Pandamonium for as long as it’s been professionally printed.

It was good to see John today.

JNB is located at 141 West 32nd Street (718-965-4700). The woman in charge of pre-press is Robin and she is just fantastic to work with. She seems to enjoy working on this project and treats it with tender loving care. What a big help that is!! I always show up with a variety of CDs and files and fonts and scans and…
It can be a bit confusing. "What version of Quark are you using "Quark 7. We don’t use 7…"
Today it only took an hour to get everything loaded on Robin’s computer and ready for the pre-press process.
What a relief.

This year, as always, we had a top-notch production crew. Elizabeth Reagh of Good Form Design was our lead design and layout person and she is such a talented pro. Antony O’Hara contributed a great deal of time, expertise and creativity to Panda’s new artwork centerfold, as well as other sections. And as we speak, Debby Albenda, an art director at Nick Magazine is hard at work on the cover and the credits page.
The co-editor of this epic project is Susan Buchsbaum and she’s just amazingly energetic and smart. The list of typists, scanners, and proofreaders is too numerous to mention but thanks to all.

But today, I want to salute the effort and energy of Robin, John and the staff at JNB Printing in Sunset Park. Thank you so much for all your work.