Puncher & Wattmann

Puncher & Wattmann is an independent Australian publishing house specializing in  Australian poetry and literary fiction.

History
Puncher & Wattmann was founded by David Musgrave in 2005.Launched by David Malouf, its first title, James Stinks (and so does Chuck) by Nick Riemer (2005) placed third in the Mary Gilmore Award in 2006.

Subsequent poetry titles have included: Simon West's First Names (2006), shortlisted for the 2006 Kenneth Slessor Award and awarded the William Baylebridge Prize in 2007, as well as being commended in the Anne Elder Award; Peter Kirkpatrick's Westering (2006), shortlisted for the 2008 Kenneth Slessor Award and awarded the William Baylebridge Prize in 2007; John Watson's Montale: An Autobiographical Anthology (2006), shortlisted for the 2007 C.J. Dennis Poetry Prize and Adelaide Festival Award for Innovation; Phyllis Perlstone's The Edge of Everything, shortlisted for the 2008 Kenneth Slessor Award; Carol Jenkins's Fishing in the Devonian, shortlisted for the 2008 C J Dennis Poetry Prize; M T C Cronin's Squeezing Desire Through a Sieve" Micro-Essays on Law and Poetry, shortlisted for the 2010 Adelaide Festival Award for Innovtion; Martin Langford's The Human Project: New & Selected Poems, shortlisted for the 2010 John Bray Poetry Prize; Ken Bolton's Sly Mongoose, shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year Poetry Prize; Mark Tredinnick's Fire Diary, awarded the WA Premier's Prize for Poetry.

Contemporary
In 2012 Puncher & Wattmann will be publishing Man of letters: Dog Rock 3 by the Australian novelist David Foster. In late 2012, the press will also be publishing Towards the Equator: New & Selected Poems by Alex Skovron.

Puncher & Wattmann is a member of SPUNC, (Small Press Underground networking Community - Australia).

Name
The names "Puncher and Wattmann" come from Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot (1952)," specifically from a speech by Lucky when he is given his hat to think. The excerpt is as follows: Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown...