Writers strive for precision without sparsity.

Perry poet Jason Wesco is no exception.

What he has come to realize, though, is that collections of words, however well-targeted, cannot completely capture a moment in time.

Thus evolved the title of “Between the Letters,” Wesco’s first book of poetry. He self-published the collection in October.

“Language is so imprecise that even between the letters there is meaning,” said Wesco, a 29-year-old grantwriter for Kansas Legal Services.

Wesco began putting pen to paper and producing verse in 1992. Recently flipping through his writing journal, he discovered it contained enough good poems for a respectable collection. But he wanted to move quickly  not a realistic goal when breaking into the publishing industry  so he took matters into his own hands.

He did some research, started Perry-based 219 Press and printed 556 copies of the book, which also contains original artwork by Wesco and his wife, Jennifer.

Wesco’s poems are written as free verse and seldom spill over more than one printed page. His pieces chronicle his travels in Kansas and the sentiment different places inspired in him. They sketch characters in Wesco’s past and present lives. They are attempts, Wesco said, to live in the present.

“About as close as I can get to a feeling in my life is to get it down on paper,” he said. “The work is a reflection of points in time, things that made me stop. I think it’s a collection of stoppages in my mind. And some of it’s about people in my life who make me stop.”

Origins

Several of Wesco’s poems deal with his and other people’s tendency to rush through life, not noticing potentially interesting details. For instance, motorists barrel down the interstate past exits to small Kansas towns, often dismissing the worth of stopping to take a closer look.

“You go past these places so fast, and you make so many assumptions,” Wesco said. “I think that’s what people do with Kansas.”

Wesco grew up in Indiana and moved to Kansas in 1997 after getting a master’s degree in cultural studies from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He first worked for the Kansas State Historical Society and traveled extensively to Kansas locations, remote and otherwise. He said he didn’t really start writing anything worth reading until he got to Kansas.

“There’s something about this state that’s very tangible,” he said. “It’s a very real thing to be a Kansan.”

He lived in Lawrence for three years before moving to Jefferson County and the 1860s farm house where he composes most of his work on scraps of paper while stretched out on the floor.

Writing helps Wesco sort out strong emotions. He suspects it served the same purpose for his father, who was “not one you would anticipate writing poetry.”

Nonetheless, Wesco stumbled upon his father’s journal as a teen-ager and found pages of poems inside. He never talked to his father about his discovery, but the experience taught Wesco early-on that poetry was an art accessible to anyone.

Universal art

Likewise, it’s an art that benefits from diverse readings. That’s why Wesco typically avoids the two most common questions people ask when they find out he writes poetry: Is it true and what’s it about?

His response to the first is, “Does it matter?”

“The only thing I can hope is that it rings true,” he said.

As far as what it’s about, the idea is for readers to derive their own meanings from the work.

And, as the maiden book on 219 Press’s roster, the collection is an example of what the publisher can help other writers produce. Wesco wants authors to publish works that focus on poetry, art, photography and history.

Too many creative people stow away their creations because they don’t think they’re good or they don’t have the resources to get them out, Wesco said.

“Maybe this will help people in those circumstances say, ‘Art and expression are mine, too. They’re not just somebody else’s.'”