A Bonsai-Shaped Mind

A BonsaI-Shaped Mind

Winner of the 2024 FPBA Collector’s Prize

Engravings by Richard Wagener
Writing by Marc Peter Keane

Slipcase Edition: $1950 Deluxe Edition: $2800
Engraver’s Edition: $4400

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Nawakum Press and Mixolydian Editions have published their fourth collaborative edition titled A Bonsai-Shaped Mind & Postures of the Heart, a celebration of all that is bonsai. 

Bonsai, the ancient art of cultivating miniature trees, embodies a unique and captivating form of natural beauty. At first glance, these diminutive masterpieces appear to be small, delicate specimens, yet they possess a profound and timeless elegance that transcends their size. Every twist of a branch, every carefully trimmed leaf, and every winding root tells a story of time, discipline, and a deep connection between the artist and the tree.

Bonsai trees, with their artful combination of wild nature and human creativity, invite contemplation. They evoke a sense of tranquility, offering viewers a glimpse into a demanding and intuitive process, a harmonious relationship between humanity and a small slice of the natural world. The meticulous care and attention to detail required to shape and maintain a bonsai tree is a testament to the patience and dedication of its caretaker.

Bonsai’s relevance today lies in its fusion of nature and artistry. In our fast paced world, these miniature trees symbolize patience, mindfulness, and the beauty of simplicity. Beyond aesthetics, they serve as a reminder of the importance of nurturing and preserving our environment, making it a timeless and meaningful practice.

The first section of the edition is titled A Bonsai-shaped Mind and consists of a series of five short essays on bonsai from internationally known author and artist Marc Peter Keane, living in Kyoto, Japan. They address bonsai culture, the awe-inspiring yet humble nature of the art form, and the foresight required to work within this realm. For the author bonsai is a living art; it is the art of shepherding: it is the art of inheritance. His translations of short poems from Japan’s Edo period share the stage with the writing.

Master wood engraver Richard Wagener has created a number of large, end grain boxwood engravings for this section, inspired by actual bonsai specimens at the Pacific Bonsai Museum in Washington State. Each specimen engraving comes with a descriptive provenance for that specific tree. All engravings are printed on Japanese gampi paper on Wagener’s Pratt Albion hand press.

In the second section of the book the reader will find an intricately crafted short story in nine parts. It follows a sole shimpaku bonsai tree, backwards and forwards in time. The story takes place over a five-hundred-year period, incorporating both the distant past and an uncertain future. Three owners of the bonsai, and their circumstances while shepherding the tree, are portrayed.

And again, Wagener’s wood engravings accompany the story, printed with his hand press on Japanese handmade Yamagampi.

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It is a confluence, a coalescence, an amalgamation of every hand that has touched it, every blade that has cut into it, every mind that has pondered its existence.

All inquiries contact:
david@nawakumpress.com
richard@richardwagener.com

Richard Wagener

Marc Peter Keane

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Titles

A Descent into the Maelström

A Descent into the Maelström

By Edgar Allan Poe
Illustrations by Gary Alphonso

Slipcase Edition: Out of Print
Deluxe Edition: Out of Print

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In 1841 Edgar Allan Poe, the architect of the modern short story, published ‘A Descent into the Maelström’ in Graham’s Magazine. Poe considered it to be one of his best tales. Much of what Poe is known for lies in evidence in this story of survival at sea. There is darkness and chaos, a looming abyss, and terror. The acquisition of real knowledge in this tale brings into perspective Poe’s view that, despite the chaotic mysteries of Nature, man’s own intuitive sense often breaks through these mysteries. It is a fisherman’s sense of awe, and acute observational skills that in the end enable him to make the best choice that ultimately proves to be his salvation.

The story draws its inspiration from the raging waters that surround the desolate Lofoten Island archipelago in the North Sea, off the Norwegian coast. Three fishermen, all brothers, are caught in a windstorm and strong tide, and are pulled into the swirling tumult that creates one of the largest whirlpools, or maelströms, in the world. Poe had learned about this deadly sea phenomena from several sources, which included an account in Fraser’s Magazine in 1834. The primary narrator of Poe’s tale is one of the brothers caught in the maelström, who tells his young companion how the others were sucked into the liquid abyss and perished, while he alone managed to survive.

Nawakum Press has published Poe’s short story in 32 pages, measuring 7” x 13”, in an edition of 60 signed copies. The book contains a facsimile fold-out map of the whirlpool, created by Vincenzo Coronelli in 1696. Published in two states, a numbered Slipcase edition, and a lettered Deluxe edition, housed in a clamshell box. Inset on the cover of the box is a sea cyanotype print, created in the ocean, on a UK shoreline. Four illustrations have been created for the edition by Gary Alphonso of Toronto, Canada, and plated for Joel Benson’s letterpress in Vallejo, California. Lisa Van Pelt of Cloverdale, California made the paste papers and bound the books and enclosures.

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All inquiries contact:
david@nawakumpress.com

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Titles

Cascadia

Cascadia

Engravings by Richard Wagener
Poetry by Christopher Herold
Essay by William Dietrich

Standard Edition- Out of print

Deluxe Edition- Out of Print

Engraver’s Edition- Out of Print

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CASCADIA, a contemplative exploration and celebration of wild places in the Pacific Northwest. In this homage to natural grace and wonder a master wood engraver, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, and an acclaimed haiku poet weave a rich and insightful tapestry of old-growth forests and uncertain futures.

This book is a remembrance of what was lost, an appreciation of what is left, and a celebration of what could be. Forests are not eternal. For all their solemn stillness, they constantly change, evolve, die, and regrow. But they are persistent, and they always strive to return to an intricacy that is both evocative and instructive.

Award-winning co-publisher and wood engraver Richard Wagener produced twenty-six remarkable boxwood engravings for this edition. They reflect, through his care and meticulous detail, his boundless passion for the natural world. All the engravings were printed by hand on his Vandercook press, along with some of the text, and over half the engravings are on handmade Japanese Bichhu and Yamagampi paper.

Author William Dietrich wrote “The Lost Forest” for this edition, a meditation delving into forest realms past, present and future. In crisp and lyric prose he portrays for the reader the essence of what is so special about these sacred places, and what is truly at stake in preserving them.

Poet Christopher Herold contributed thirty haiku poems, and three delightful haibun, almost all of which are unpublished. Through these poems he shares his personal experience of wildness, and his reverence for such essential and inspiring worlds.

Letterpress printer Patrick Reagh has cast the lead type for the edition on one of his many Monototype casting machines, and printed all the text on the handmade St. Armand paper.

SEVENTY copies are published at eighty-two pages, and measure 7 1/4” x 14 3/4.” Of the seventy copies published thirty are slipcased and numbered, twenty-six copies are deluxe and lettered, ten copies of the Engraver’s Edition are noted as such, and six copies are reserved for contributors. All copies are signed by the artist, author and poet

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Titles

The Republic of Dreams

The Republic of Dreams

By Bruno Schulz
Etchings by Thomas Wood

Out of Print

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Bruno Schulz was a Polish writer, fine artist, and literary critic, born in 1892 in the town of Drohobycz in Galicia, which today is in Ukraine. Schulz is regarded as one of the greatest Polish-language prose stylists of the twentieth century, and is often referred to as the “Polish Kafka.” His life’s work is small, with only two collections of short stories, a novella, a few essays, and a great deal of his artwork which remain. He was killed by a Nazi SS officer in World War II on his way home in the ghetto. He was allegedly carrying a loaf of bread at the time, which was payment from another SS officer for painting fairy tales on his children’s bedroom walls.

Nawakum Press has published Schulz’s short story The Republic of Dreams, written in 1936, in a limited edition artist’s book format, co-designed, printed and bound by Foolscap Press. Three etchings from artist Thomas Wood, who also worked on Nawakum’s The Book of Sand, are woven in throughout the book. The binding structure is unconventional, and while a codex in the traditional sense, there are three different page sizes in the book with etching sizes changing accordingly. The book is housed in a Japanese cloth, overlapping double panel box enclosure secured by rare earth magnets. 

The book is printed in Polish and in English in green and black inks, each language sharing each page, with a new translation by Madeline G. Levine, Kenan Professor of Slavic Literatures Emerita at the University of North Carolina. In her words- “In a sense, in order to find an English voice for him I had to suppress my critical habits, hold my breath, dive deep and start swimming." Schulz had an active and vivid imagination, and his style of magic realist writing brings a constant metamorphosis within his work, blurring the borders of time, the real world and dreams, the spiritual and the physical.

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Titles

A Kerosene Beauty

A Kerosene Beauty

Poetry by Jane Hirshfield
Mezzotints by Holly Downing 

Out of Print

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Holly Downing, Artist

Jane Hirshfield, Poet

A Kerosene Beauty: Twelve Environmental Elegiacs is a collection of new, unpublished poems written by award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield. The poems are laments speaking of climate catastrophe and its felt consequence, in ways both direct and indirect. One poem mourns the loss of a neighbor’s eighty-foot-tall Monterey pine, another holds refugees crossing the Mediterranean, another recalls harrowed war fields of medieval Japan and 1916 France. The poem from which this book takes its title looks back on our current actions from a future undescribable and undescribed. 

On equal footing with the poetry is Holly Downing’s artwork in the form of seven mezzotints. Downing, a painter, printmaker and teacher has provided remarkably beautiful mezzotints for this edition, as a visual reflection on Hirshfield’s stunning poetry. Drawing from over forty years of working with this demanding and labor intensive method of print-making from the intaglio family, her images are both haunting and marvelous in nature. A chunk of limestone, broken granite, a lost feather, and a wild beehive are some of the images that temporarily suspend the reader between poems, allowing for deep reflection amidst a visual and tactile hand-made experience.

A Kerosene Beauty: Twelve Environmental Elegiacs is 48 pages and measures 15" x 9" in landscape format. Patrick Reagh cast the lead type and printed the books letterpress on his Heidelberg cylinder press. The papers are Rives BFK from France, St. Armand Linen from Canada, Slate Stone Leaf from Brazil, and Wheat Straw from Hook Paper in Indiana. The book is bound in Japanese black quarter cloth with paper made from actual quartzite over boards. The paste paper on the back cover and the bindings were produced by Lisa Van Pelt in Philo, California. The bok is housed in a custom wooden box crafted in Japan, and covered in a drawstring bag. 

Published in an edition of 28 numbered copies, with 20 for sale, signed by the poet and artist. 

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Watch Holly Making a Mezzotint

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Titles

The Sea Fogs

THE SEA FOGS

By Robert Louis Stevenson
Introduction by Roger G. Swearingen
Illustrated by Gary Alphonso

Out of Print

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'The Sea Fogs' is the tenth of fourteen episodes - narratives, character sketches, and extended moments - that make up Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet Robert Louis Stevenson's The Silverado Squatters. It is drawn from Stevenson’s journal, which he kept while on a two-month stay on Mount St. Helena, at the head of the Napa Valley in California. He had come to the area for his honeymoon in 1880, and for his health as well, hoping to get away from the damp, coastal climate of San Francisco. Unable to afford the ten dollars a week for a room at the local hotel, he and his bride instead “squatted” an old bunkhouse, at an abandoned silver mine on the side of the mountain.

On a fine June morning Stevenson found himself awakening to, and then writing about, a local natural occurrence- fogs drawn inland from the Pacific Ocean. Stevenson scholar Roger G. Swearingen, through his introduction, shares with the reader just how a younger Stevenson, surrendering himself completely to this highly personal story, was fully in command of his art long before penning his most famous works. And how this wonderful, self contained, stand-alone piece is among Stevenson’s finest of this kind.

The book is 32 pages and measures 6 -1/4 by 10-3/4 inches. The typeface is Ehrhardt, with Isadora for display. Patrick Reagh cast the type and printed the book on Zerkall Frankfurt at his shop in Sebastopol, California. Illustrations printed letterpress, with color triptych printed digitally at Black Cat Studio. The binding and slipcases were produced by Lisa Van Pelt. The Sea Fogs is published in one state, in an edition of 55 slipcased copies, each numbered and signed by the artist.

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Titles

Trading Eights, The Faces of Jazz

Trading Eights, The Faces of Jazz

Wood engraved portraits of jazzmen by James G. Todd Jr.
Essay by Ted Gioia, Jazz Critic and Historian
Poem by Dana Gioia, Poet and Former NEA Chairman

Out of Print
2016 Fine Press Book Association Book Review

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Trading Eights, The Faces of Jazz is an exploration into jazz culture, where the music is played, and those who played it so well. Jazz is improvisation, and this edition brings forth that same spontaneity in portraying the smoky back rooms where jazzmen were kings. Deeply personal, it shares a vision of this unique style of music through the eyes of an artist, music historian and poet.

Paying homage to a quintessential American style of music, known for its spontaneity and improvisation, this edition blends evocative jazzmen portraiture with new and highly personal characterizations of the music. Jazz is embodied music. Here you will find portraits of eight iconic jazz figures, engraved by James G. Todd Jr., an innovator in the field of wood engraving. Accompanying these penetrating engravings are words from jazz pianist and writer Ted Gioia, author of The History of Jazz, and poetry from his brother Dana Gioia, poet and former Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts. Wood engraver Richard Wagener has printed each portrait from the original blocks.

Trading Eights, The Faces of Jazz is sixty-four pages and measures 9 inches by 14 inches. The typefaces are Ehrhardt and Janson, cast in lead by Patrick Reagh. The text is printed by Richard Wagener and Patrick Reagh. The binding is by Lisa Van Pelt with French Chagreen quarter goatskin, and with blue-black and grey paste papers she designed in her studio in Philo, California.

Trading Eights, The Faces of Jazz is co-published in one state, in an edition of fifty-five, by Richard Wagener of Mixolydian Press and David Pascoe of Nawakum Press. Forty copies are for sale and signed by the author, poet, and artist.

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Titles

Encheiresin Naturae

Encheiresin Naturae

Fifteen Engravings by Barry Moser
A Heroic Crown of Sonnets by Paul Muldoon

Available upon inquiry/request

Encheiresin Naturae is a creative collaboration between Barry Moser, the renowned American engraver, and Paul Muldoon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet. Moser's strikingly new abstract images, invented and engraved for this Nawakum Press edition, intimately consort with Muldoon's new and powerful, unpublished poems.

Fifteen abstract relief engravings were invented and engraved by Moser in his studio in Hatfield, Massachusetts in 2014. They were inspired by the phrase encheiresin naturae taken from his reading of Goethe's Faust, referencing an alchemist's many experiments in "manipulating nature." Muldoon was asked to respond to the images poetically, and he chose an advanced form of a crown of sonnets, known as a sonnet redoublé, or heroic crown of sonnets for his tour-de-force response.

In Encheiresin Naturae each of Muldoon's sonnets is paired opposite a Moser engraving, which has been printed directly from the block. These new non-representational images mark a major departure in the engraver's work. Moser was trained early on as an abstract painter in the halcyon days of the Abstract Expressionists, and these engravings are, in a manner, a return to beginnings. Poet John Ashbery has referred to Moser's work as "never less than dazzling." Jasper Johns refers to these images as "terrific and surprising."

The edition is published in one boxed state:
Encheiresin Naturae is seventy-six pages and measures 14" by 18-1/4". The paper is mouldmade Zerkall and Twinrocker handmade. The binding is half leather with marbled paper over boards. The drop spine box is covered with scarlet Japanese cloth and features a small, embedded, hand-hammered and annealed copper plate. Three prints from the book are housed in a Saint-Armand handmade paper chemise. Published in an edition of fifty copies, forty of which are numbered and for sale, and ten copies, lettered A to J, are hors de commerce.

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Coverage of Encheiresin Naturae 

Loom

Loom

Wood Engravings by Richard Wagener
Poem by Alan Loney

2016 Winner: Carl Hertzog Award of Excellence in Book Design

Out of Print  

Richard Wagener is a California printmaker and book artist specializing in wood engraving. His meticulously executed work is in the Special Collections departments of over seventy-five public and private institutional libraries. Richard has always been enamored of looms, and one day he arrived at a question—how many threads does it take to make a weaving? While completing his "Sierra Nevada Suite" for The Book Club of California, the artist started a series of drawings exploring threads on a loom. They were unlike anything he had done before. He then began to engrave.

Alan Loney is a poet, writer on the nature of the book, and publisher. He is also a handpress printer, currently proprietor of Electio Editions in Melbourne, Australia. He has published over 50 books of his own work and that of other poets through his various Presses. Richard Wagener approached Alan one day with three engravings he had finished, exploring the beauty of connection and disconnection as seen in loom work and in life. He asked Alan if he would respond to these, and other engravings to come, with his poetry. He agreed and wrote a poem for what would eventually become a series of sixteen extraordinary engravings.

The edition is published in two states:

Deluxe: 16 Copies. The binding is hand sewn on linen tapes and laced into a limp paper case made of Handmade PC4 Blue from Timothy Barrett at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. The book is housed in a Japanese cloth covered four-flap enclosure, secured by rare earth magnets. A paper chemise holds one of the 16 prints from the book, with no version containing the same print, another print designed for the deluxe edition, and creative process remarks from both the artist and poet. Each book is foil stamped on the spine, signed by the artist and poet, and lettered A-P.
Publication price: Out of print.

Slipcased: 30 Copies. The binding is hand sewn on linen tapes and laced into a limp paper case made of Handmade PC4 Blue from Timothy Barrett at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. The book is housed in a Japanese cloth covered slipcase with a printed label on the spine. Each book is foil stamped on the spine, signed by the artist and poet, and numbered 1-30.

Publication price: Out of print.

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Outside

OUTSIDE

by Barry Lopez
Engravings by Barry Moser

Slipcased Version  Out of Print
Deluxe Version  Out of Print
Purchase Trade Edition on Amazon

Barry Lopez, prize winning American author, essayist and fiction writer and Barry Moser, renowned American book designer, printmaker and illustrator both met each other at Moser's home in Hatfield, Massachusetts, in 2009. Moser had been a professor of Lopez's step-daughter at Smith College and her family was there for her graduation. Over dinner they ruminated on the possibility of collaborating on a book project together. Nawakum Press worked with both in 2011, and 2012, to bring about this fine press limited edition of Outside.

Six short stories of Barry Lopez, taken from his Notes trilogy, written over a span of almost twenty years from 1976-1994, are accompanied by "meditation" engravings by Barry Moser reflecting multifaceted aspects of the text. The engravings were printed directly from the blocks on Gampi Torinoko, a legendary handmade Japanese paper. Lopez has written an Afterword, and an Introduction has been included from James Perrin Warren of Washington and Lee University.

The edition is published in two states:

Deluxe: 15 Copies. Fifteen copies are bound in a millimeter binding. The spine and fore edges are black Levant goatskin. The side panels are copper Asahi book cloth. On the spine, the title stamped in gold on a red leather onlay. The book and extra suite of all prints from the book are housed in a double-tray, drop-spine box. The front of the box features an accent of recessed Sycamore veneer and black leather. Identified by roman numerals, and signed on the colophon page by the author and artist. Of the fifteen deluxe copies, only twelve are available for purchase.
Publication price: Out of print.

Slipcased: 35 Copies. Thirty-five copies, in a rounded and backed lap-case binding. The spine is rust Asahi book cloth and the sides are marbled papers commissioned from Pam Smith of Abiquiu, New Mexico. The book is housed in a slipcase, two tone black and rust Ashai book cloth and printed paper label on the closed side. Numbered 1-28 and signed on the colophon page by the author and artist. Of the thirty-five slipcased copies, twenty-eight are available for purchase.
Publication price: Out of print.

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The Book of Sand

The Book of Sand

by Jorge Luis Borges

Out of Print

"The Book of Sand" is a short story written by Jorge Luis Borges, first published in Spanish in 1975. It was from his last major collection of the same name. Borges was born in 1899 and began publishing his poetry and essays in surrrealistic lierary journals in the early twenties. He later went on to much critical acclaim, sharing the first Priz International with Samuel Beckett. Borges was named director of the National Library of Argentina (Biblioteca National) in 1955, and served for nearly twenty years while almost entirely blind. Soon after resigning his position he wrote his story of a retired librarian and a very unusual book.

Designed in an artists' book format, in collaboration with Peggy Gotthold and Lawrence G. Van Velzer of Foolscap Press, the Nawakum Press edition of The Book of Sand was printed and bound at their press in Santa Cruz, California. Artist and printmaker Thomas Wood of Bellingham, Washington was comissioned to create the etchings for this bilingual limited edition.

The edition is published in one state:

30 copies, of which 24 are for sale. In Spanish and in English, the text is letterpress printed on Curtis Holcomb Text and handmade Cave Paper from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Garamond types were cast by Michael and Winifred Bixler of Skanaeteles, New York. Copper relief etchings, mirroring the style noted in the story, are designed into the text and printed from the copper plates on blocks mounted type high. They are accompanied by two large copper etchings printed by the artist, recessed into boards covered with Japanese book cloth and with a Cave Paper overleaf.

The peak roofed book, taking inspiration from the Biblioteca National, measures 11" x 13-1/2" and is housed in a covered box made from Cave Paper over boards. The cover label is letterpress printed on Cave Paper and inset with Japanese book cloth. The edition is numbered 1-24, with six lettered copies reserved for the Press. Each copy is signed by the artist.
Publication price: Out of print.

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In A Single Gesture

In A Single Gesture

by Alan Loney

Out of Print
 

Alan Loney has developed an international reputation as a poet, writer of prose and criticism, publisher, and as a fine press printer. He is the 2011 recipient of the Janet Frame Award for Poetry in New Zealand for lifetime achievement, and previously won the 1976 New Zealand Book Award for poetry with his collection Dear Mondrian. Loney has printed over fifty books of his own work and the work of other poets. His Hawk Press (1974-83), Black Light Press (1987-91), and Holloway Press (1994-98) have given voice to the smallest nuances of his creative expressions and those of other poets.

In A Single Gesture is a sequence of 24 poems manifesting as one, connected by a single calligraphic line drawn by Judy Detrick through the entire sixteen-foot length of the accordion style binding. Poetry of thoughtful feeling from the outset, as Loney himself describes it, the work draws inspiration from ancient Greek poets and philosophers. Each poem's first line has been selected from an original Greek text and translated by the poet. Expanding on the essence of these first lines, each poem then resonates with immediate personal relevance in a style both self reflective and circumspect, in a manner that is crisp, fragmented, erudite and uniquely Loney.

30 copies, of which 24 are for sale. Letterpress printed on mould-made Somerset Book and handmade Cave Paper, the book is 32 pages which measure 61/2 by 12 inches. Jason Dewinetz of Greenboathouse Press designed the edition. The text is Brioso Pro, designed by Robert Slimbach. California calligrapher Judy Detrick illustrated the text with a calligraphic line, printed letterpress, running throughout the entire length of the book. Patrick Reagh printed the text and covers from polymer plates.The accordion bindings and clamshell boxes were produced by John DeMerritt. 
 

Publication price: Out of print.

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Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow

Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow

by Herman Melville

Slipcased Edition  Out of Print
Deluxe Edition  Out of Print

A cherished assumption among those who love Moby Dick is that this masterwork is all that Melville wrote, or needed to write. But postwar readers, especially since the 1960s, have truly dispensed with such assumptions. They have come to learn that this writer of America's greatest sea-epic could write quite impressively on a small scale.

Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow first appeared in the May, 1854 issue of Putnam's Magazine, as the eighth of a ten-sketch work, set in the Galapagos Islands and titled The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles. It is the longest by far of the ten Encantadan sketches, and it is the work's climax and heart. It has been described as an ignored gem for its sparse narration, feminist focus, and complex position on faith.

Published with an Introduction written by leading Melville scholar and professor of English at Hofstra University, John Bryant. He is the author of five published books on Melville and the general editor of The Melville Society, one of the oldest and largest single author societies in America. He is currently at work on a soon to be published new biography of Herman Melville.

Published with original, commissioned wood engravings by Rik Olson, California illustrator and fine artist. He is acknowledged as a living master of wood engraving and studied under such artists as Barry Moser, John DePol, Richard McLean, and Ralph Borge. He has lived, studied, and exhibited in Italy, Germany, and the United States.

The book is published in two states:

Deluxe: 25 Copies. Letterpress printed on Rives Heavyweight with engravings printed from original wood blocks. Artist designed patterned paper over boards, quarter bound in gold stamped black goatskin and housed in a Japanese book cloth clamshell box. Additional 2-color wood engraving of Herman Melville printed and signed by the artist, in a paper chemise. The books are numbered 1-20 and signed by the artist. Five additional lettered copies are reserved for the Press. Publication price: Out of print.

Slipcased: 75 Copies. Letterpress printed on Rives Heavyweight with engravings printed from original wood blocks. Artist designed patterned paper over boards, quarter bound in Japanese book cloth and housed in a slipcase. The books are numbered and signed by the artist. Five additional copies are lettered and reserved for the Press.

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The Indigo Bunting

The Indigo Bunting: 15 Love Poems

by Robert Bly

Slipcased Version  Out of Print
Deluxe Version  Out of Print

Robert Bly is an American poet and the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including The Light Around the Body, which won the National Book Award. He has translated the works of notable poets such as Pablo Neruda, Hafez, Rainier Maria Rilke and Kabir, and is the author of numerous nonfiction books as well, most notably his bestselling Iron John exploring modern masculinity.

Bly's 1985 collection, Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, from which these poems have been chosen, took many readers by surprise. These poems, full of openness and vulnerability, show a side of Bly seldom seen, and strike a fresh note on the 25th anniversary of their publication.

Published with a foreword by Thomas R. Smith, poet, editor, educator, and author of six books of poetry. Published with original, commissioned wood engravings by Berkeley, California artist Keith Cranmer. The books are numbered 1-20 for the deluxe version, with 1-5 reserved for the press, and the slipcased version is numbered 21-100. The entire edition is signed by the poet.

The book is published in two states:

Deluxe: 20 Copies. The book is case bound with burnt orange Cave Paper over boards, and quarter bound in foil stamped dark brown goatskin. Housed in a drop spine box of Japanese book cloth and accompanied by a paper chemise containing a signed and numbered wood engraving of the Indigo Bunting used for the cover. Publication price: Out of print.

Slipcased: 80 Copies. The book is case bound with burnt orange Cave Paper over boards, and quarter bound in dark brown Italian book cloth with paper label on the spine. Housed in a slipcase of Italian book cloth. Publication price: Out of print.

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Undersea

Undersea

by Rachel L. Carson

Slipcased Edition,  Out of print
Deluxe Edition,   Out of print

The September issue of The Atlantic Monthly for 1937 included an essay titled simply, Undersea, by R. L. Carson. Those who read it were uniformly impressed with its lyric quality and by the scientific understanding of its author. Later, the literary world would remember this essay as the unassuming debut of one of the greatest narrative writers and ecologists of the 20th century, Rachel Carson.

With an Introduction by Linda Lear, environmental historian and biographer, author of the prize-winning Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, editor of Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, and author of Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. She is founder of the Lear/Carson Archives in Connecticut.

With an Afterword by Julia Whitty, an award-winning writer, former documentary underwater filmmaker, author of The Fragile Edge, a book on the ocean and coral reefs, and Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean.

Illustrated by Dugald Stermer, author of four books: Vanishing Creatures, Vanishing Flora, Birds and Bees, and The Art Of Revolution. A former magazine designer for Harper's, Oceans, Sierra and Coastal Living, his freelance clients have included the 1984 Olympic Games, for which he designed the official medals, Time, Newsweek, Esquire, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker.

The book is published in two states:

Deluxe: 20 Copies. Letterpress printed on Hahnemühle Biblio, in a tipped folio case bound binding with digital reproductions of the original color illustrations. Housed in a clamshell box with additional hand colored print in paper chemise. Each book is gold stamped on the spine, numbered 1-20, and signed by the artist. Ten additional copies are lettered A-J and reserved for the Press. Publication price: Out of print.

Slipcased: 80 Copies. Letterpress printed on Hahnemühle Biblio, in a tipped folio case bound binding with digital reproductions of the original color illustrations. Books are numbered and signed by artist.

Publication price: Out of print  

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