A POEM BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY⠀•⠀A WOODBLOCK PRINT BY ROCKWELL KENT

The first broadside from No Reply Press comes at the end of 2020, a year that saw more of the "bludgeoning of chance" than usual. For the press, the year of Coronavirus was also the year of wildfires, of scarcity, and of burglary. And yet hard times often bring an impulse toward defiance. This is the mood captured best in William Ernest Henley’s famous poem,

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

We are delighted to present the poem alongside Rockwell Kent’s Oarsman, who reminds us that we must “row our own boat.” Still, the figure looks off. Perhaps he is looking to another oarsman, rowing beside him.