In late summer 1965, James Reaney’s Alphabet Press printed the first edition of Colleen Thibaudeau’s Lozenges: Poems in the Shapes of Things in London, Ontario. Thibaudeau’s husband James Reaney typeset the poems and also designed the cover.
In fall 2024, Hilary Neary, historian and former Alphabet Magazine designer, proposed a facsimile second edition of the original Lozenges for Colleening 2025, a celebration of the centenary of Colleen Thibaudeau (1925-2012).
(Photo by James Stewart Reaney)
On August 27, 2025, after many months coordinating and resourcing this venture, printers and compositors Hilary Neary, Stephen Sword, and Mike Baker (pictured above) gathered at The Forge and Anvil Museum in Sparta, Ontario to print the new second edition. The photo shows a proof from the new 2025 edition’s cover design in the foreground, and Mike Baker holding the original 1965 classic by Colleen Thibaudeau.
Copies of the new Lozenges: Poems in the Shape of Things were given out at Colleening 2025 events in London and St. Thomas.
( ( ( 0 ) ) ) Listen to Hilary Neary and Mike Baker read poems from Lozenges.
one of her poems “The Hockey Stick” on the inside front cover.
For more about Alphabet Press and Alphabet Magazine, see Douglas I. Brown’s 1973 thesis A History and Index of Alphabet Magazine; a revised and updated excerpt from Brown’s thesis appears in Devil’s Artisan, A Journal of the Printing Arts, No. 71, Fall/Winter 2012.
See also Margaret Atwood’s 1971 article “Chronicle: Eleven Years of Alphabet” in the journal Canadian Literature, and earlier posts Happy 50th Alphabet from 2010 and Devil’s Artisan 72: A new home for Alphabet’s Nolan proof press from 2013.
James Reaney 