Poetry Book Style Icons 4: The Man With Blue Eyes by Lee Harwood

I am a huge fan of Lee Harwood. Fourth up in the poetry book design pageant is his book from 1966, The Man With Blue Eyes. It is an 'Angel Hair Book', published in an edition of 500. For information about Angel Hair, you could do no better than following this link to the introduction to this anthology as featured in the brilliant jacket magazine, written by Anne Waldman, who along with Lewis Warsh edited Angel Hair's books and magazines. This book has a very New York school feel to it, with cover design by Joe Brainard and an introduction by Peter Schjeldahl. The cover is intriguing though at first glance it looks very simple. It is blue. With black bold hand-written font, most of which is capitalised. The exceptions are the 'he' of 'The' and both the 'y's. There is a black hand-drawn star in three of the four corners, and one next to the word 'eyes' like a twinkle. Love that twinkle. It's also a kind of footnote-indicator. There's a thin black line as a border around the front cover. The cover paper is very thin too, almost thinner than that inside. It makes the book seem fragile and vulnerable, charming too.
The poems are typewritten on off-white, quality paper, with bold titles. One of my favourite poems in the book is "New York will welcome me", which features these lines:

"life gets tedious....." he said
as the last indian arrow
passed through the breast pocket
of his last check-shirt
one dollar is seven shillings and tuppence
and at present there is a water-shortage
in new york meaning water cannot be
served at table unless requested'.

New York sure did welcome him and this book looks, and is, great. Good job, Anne, Lewis, Joe and Lee!

gordon brown

gordon brown is right to
gordon brown is right to keep his powder dry
gordon brown is wrong
gordon brown is scared of david gold
gordon brown is right to keep his powder dry by avoiding a pre
gordon brown is
gordon brown is an enigma to his colleagues
gordon brown is a goth
gordon brown is often seen as a cold
gordon brown is worried that the ecb only needs to take action when inflation is too high
gordon brown is a high taxing chancellor
gordon brown is plotting an imprudent path in an uncertain world
gordon brown is by far the most influential member of britain's labour government
gordon brown is surrounded by what he sees as unique opportunities
gordon brown is trying to present this as a giveaway budget and hopes the figures are so misleading that nobody will notice
gordon brown is expected to order british banks to freeze the assets of
gordon brown is opening a state
gordon brown is the punter's chancellor after he abolished tax on betting
gordon brown is to become a father for the first time at the age of 50
gordon brown is afeared of relaxing back to is
gordon brown is absolutely right and i think that
gordon brown is chancellor of the exchequer in the united kingdom
gordon brown is dead set on closing off entry
gordon brown is simply head and shoulders above the alternatives
gordon brown is thinking of running for the leadership of the labour party in the near future
gordon brown is preparing to throw his weight behind the campaign for british membership of the euro
gordon brown is forecasting a mild and short
gordon brown is in anniesland today
gordon brown is offering jam tomorrow
gordon brown is set to launch another budget for the rich
gordon brown is now the most popular chancellor since denis healey in the late 1970s
gordon brown is at the centre of all the troubles
gordon brown is changing one of the constants in the
gordon brown is effectively going to be our next prime minister
gordon brown is calling on rich countries to do much more to help the 1
gordon brown is only a little better than tony blair
gordon brown is the
gordon brown is taking us right back to those days
gordon brown is one of britain's leading racing journalists and broadcasters
gordon brown is clearly aware of this gap and the need to bridge it and we?ve already seen one or two pre
gordon brown is accused by mp frank field of creating an unprecedented degree of welfare dependency in a new book from civitas
gordon brown is presently labour's chancellor of the exchequer
gordon brown is still delighted with the merchandise
gordon brown is taking a huge risk with his spending plans for the next three years
gordon brown is avoiding the real issues say angry debt campaigners
gordon brown is a livelier cove than the grim
gordon brown is to give small businesses a cash boost in an effort to encourage firms to trade online and
gordon brown is a labour loyalist who wears the football shirt
gordon brown is the first chancellor in 20 years to increase the basic state pension by more than the rate of inflation
gordon brown is planning a £3 billion package aimed at families with children
gordon brown is pursuing his pro
gordon brown is even taxing the future
gordon brown is rarely mentioned in the tales of spin doctors
gordon brown is under
gordon brown is available from the wdm press office
gordon brown is chair of the imf's international monetary and financial committee
gordon brown is to reveal
gordon brown is totally in favour of more money for the national health service provided he controls the purse strings
gordon brown is cutting red tape and taxes for small businesses
gordon brown is to break with budget tradition when he unveils a series of tax breaks aimed at
gordon brown is opening the national e
gordon brown is doing is presented as 'long
gordon brown is correct to reject the simplistic calls of the road haulage industry for reduced fuel
gordon brown is at the forefront in
gordon brown is beginning to look more and more like robert walpole; tony blair could find himself playing george ii's role of the titular leader when power is
gordon brown is set to continue on his chosen course of being all gong and no dinner
gordon brown is expected
gordon brown is not at ease with many people
gordon brown is putting the finishing touches to his plans for government spending
gordon brown is a true dog lover
gordon brown is strongly opposed to a 2p cut in petrol duties
gordon brown is one of the most serious politicians on this planet
gordon brown is comprehensive guide to walking and rambling in the lake district and cumbria
gordon brown is an unlikely candidate for the saviour of broadband britain
gordon brown is playing what he hopes is a clever game
gordon brown is chair of an influential world bank/imf committee and as such is a key figure in the international financial community
gordon brown is the enigma at the centre of british economic and social policy
gordon brown is also considering attending the conference in monterrey to make a speech to the plenary on the final day of the conference
gordon brown is to outline his plans for government spending in the commons later today
gordon brown is expected to offer encouragement for it entrepreneurs in
gordon brown is that sadistic
gordon brown is preparing to increase the tax on dumping
gordon brown is valuable
gordon brown is concerned will soon be seen as his spending soars and his income doesn't
gordon brown is so concerned about their plight why has he created a climate in which bootlegging can flourish? does
gordon brown is known for his financial prudence
gordon brown is probably the most respected man in the current british government
gordon brown is cutting duty on low sulphur fuel
gordon brown is so interested in scotland?s

Poetry Book Style Icons 3: Philip Lamantia- 'Touch of The Marvelous'

In 1966 Philip Lamantia's book 'Touch of the Marvelous' was published by Oyez. The book was designed and printed by Graham Mackintosh in an edition of 1500. I believe it deserves its place on the poetry book catwalk and here's why:

Perhaps the cut-out head and shirt collar are not to everyone's taste but I think they work. The collar looks a bit like wings, and what could be more appropriate for the poet who wrote these lines- 'The sky is to be opened/ this plundered body to be loved/ this lantern to be tied/around the fangs of your heart' (13). The hair is slicked back, the lips look full and the eyes point upwards but also at you. I like the red font, it is used in the book to designate the three sections too and that is a nice touch. I like the way the title encrouches on the chest aswell, just at the turning point between neck and chest, the breast i guess.

Poetry Book Style Icons 2: Carla Harryman- 'Vice'

This time on the poetry book catwalk it's Carla Harryman's 'Vice' from Potes and Poets Press, first published in 1986. The cover designer is given as Richard Wilkins. Here's the cover, above. What I love about this cover is the interplay between the blue paint-swath, the grey shadow-swath, the white cover, the grey author's name and the very exact, stylized font on the word 'VICE'. The paint effect sort of looks handmade, with the blue forming the image of something like a gun; the big sweeping stroke looks kind of like an arm, operating the gun. The blue of the paint-gun and arm are associated by colour with the word VICE, where as the words 'Carla Harryman' are associated with the grey shadow. Because of this the author's name is, in fact, a bit asy to miss, on a first glance. The word VICE, due to the strange font which features a C that is very almost an O, and three lines where one would do, suggests the word VOICE. The cover is bold but subtle, it isn't clear how all these elements hit off against each other, but they do.

Poetry Book Style Icons

I have been thinking a lot about book-designs recently. So this is (no seriously it really is) a new series on this blog where i will run through some books that I think are particularly effective. I am going to try and stick to design elements, rather than the poems themselves, but obviously they're barely divisible sometimes.

First up is a book by David Antin, 'definitions', from 1967, published by Caterpillar. It is designed by Eleanor Antin. As you can see, the book is spiral-bound, the cover is a beautiful cardboard brown, and the font of both the title and the poet's name are both lower case, but the lines to put your name and address are both itallic and capitalised. To me, this cover suggests certain important things: because the book looks like a school-work-book it puts the reader into a position not necessarily of learning (this isn't a didactic gesture), but of working things out, exploring; second, the lower case 'david antin' and the capitalised 'Name/Address' tags suggest that in some way this book supposes to be more the reader's than the writer's book.

Inside, the paper is, and I for one have never seen a poetry book that uses this, graph paper. I find it really quite striking:

The use of graph paper (and also a diagram) makes these poems appear like 'workings' more than finished products. The tendency for the type, (typewriter-type) to bustle past the graph-paper squares gives a sense of rule-breaking, suggesting inexactitude, maybe, flair, definitely. The graph-paper has a liberating effect, it pushes focus to the points where the type doesn't quite fit (definitions don't quite fit). There is a part of the book that uses handwriting, a note at the end of the poem The Black Plague:This reads: 'Part III of The Black Plague is pretty much an arrangement of words taken from a translation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. About the words, nobody owns them- not Wittgenstein, or the translator, or me- and anyone who wants them is welcome to use them again.'

The back-cover adds another note to all of this (a note i should add that is definitely there in the poems):



In the inside flyleaf are the following words: 'The caterpillar glyph is a small napalmed vietnamese child. Until the end of the war this black caterpillar'.

Francoise Hardy - Voilà

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