[COLOMBO, John Robert, ed.]

RUBATO.; [new poems by young canadian poets].

Toronto: Purple Partridge Press, 1958. Small Octavo, 19.5 x 14.5 cm. In salmon paper wrappers, stapled not to show, with printed lettering to both the upper and lower covers. Unpaginated [32 pp.]. A few minor tears (of no more than a few mm.) along the upper edge of the upper cover, and sunning to the spine and inner edges of the covers; the text block, which is secured with a single staple, is loose within the wrappers, else a very good copy. Designed by Harold D. Kurschenska, and printed at the University of Toronto in Van Krimpen’s Spectrum type on Acme paper. One of 196 unnumbered copies. The 21 poems appearing in this volume were written by students at the University of Toronto, and among the contributors are John Robert Colombo and Christopher Priestley; as one might expect from poetry emerging from so rarefied a milieu, the prevailing style is lofty, with titles such as sic transit, aere perennius, across the sea of time, and dialectic i and dialectic ii. Kurschenska’s poised arrangements, however, create a visual poetics that function as a welcome counter-point to the verse (we might even say that the arrangement presents a dialectical contrary to dialectic ii). When ‘read’ typographically, the poems are superlative. This was the first book to appear under Kurschenska’s Purple Partridge imprint. Item #179

Price: $50.00