G. K. Allum

G. K. Allum is the founding editor and president of Ink & Ribbon Press, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit poetry publisher on Bainbridge Island, Washington. He is completing an MFA in poetry at Pacific University under the advisorship of Leila Chatti. His own manuscript, The Familiarity, has been in correspondence with editors including Michael Schmidt at PN Review and Carcanet.

The Poetry Library grew from The Ink Well, a Substack community of 6,250 readers built around serious poetry. Allum’s editorial philosophy holds that a press publishes works that needed to exist as wholes — books that could not be shuffled without loss. The same standard applies to the library: every piece should be genuinely useful or genuinely argued, not merely informative.

He handles all major donor relationships, editorial direction, and author relationships for the press personally. He writes in every section of the library, with a particular focus on the editorial essays and introductions to contemporary poets.