“Letter press is popular now for different reasons,” he says. “You can make much more beautiful things here than you can make with offset. It’s the quality of the ink and the paper.”

This year, the press is sponsoring its second annual poetry contest, which is open to all undergraduates. (Submissions are limited to twenty-five lines and are due March 22.) Winners’ poems will be bound and published by the press in a run of about one hundred copies.

Last year saw 99 entries, although Vetters says he is hoping to attract even more this time around.

The contest is “long overdue,” according to Louisa Salerno, proprietor of the Grolier Poetry Bookstore and a competition judge last year.

The press is also holding a competition for illustrations that will accompany a poster containing the poem “The Laglan Blackbird” in various translations, including several by visiting scholar and poet Seamus Heaney, who is affiliated with Adams House.

Vetters and Hulsey say they agree that one of the most remarkable things about the Bow and Arrow Press is the freedom that students have in using it.

Vetters says that most college-owned letter presses are part of a book arts curriculum and used primarily by classes.

“We’re a little peculiar in that this is driven by ad hoc student projects,” he says.

For him, the independent press is one of the “kooky” things that sets Adams apart from other houses, and he says House Co-Masters Judith and Sean Palfrey “have been really interested in making sure Adams House traditions go on.”

Vetters says he encourages students to use the press for making agit-prop because he “wanted to find a way to get political views expressed graphically.”

New facilities for bookbinding and silk-screening are also planned.