Fifty-six Ontological Studies; Poems: Jan Zwicky | Photographs: Robert Moody
[Mission B.C.]: Barbarian Press, 2020. Octavo, 27.1 x 17.3 cm. In a Bradel or German case binding with a blue-grey silk spinestrip and matching tips, and blue paper over boards. Printed paper label to the spine. The upper cover is printed with the title in blue, along with vertical and horizontal rules in grey and blue. Together, the rules form a subtle grid. Plain black endpapers. Top edges trimmed, others opened but untrimmed. pp. [14,] 3-66 [6]. A fine copy. The text was set in Van Dijck type by Apollonia Felicity Elsted, according to a design by Crispin Elsted; it was printed by Apollonia and Jan Elsted on Zerkall Smooth White Wove paper. The binding was executed by Alanna Simenson at the Mad Hatter Bookbinding Company. Alongside Zwicky’s text are eight monochrome photographs by Robert Moody. The photographs were printed by the photographer on Hahnemühle Rice Paper and are tipped-in. From a single state edition comprising 110 copies. Item #293
“It is important to realize that Fifty-six Ontological Studies is not a book of poems illustrated with photographs, but a group of reflections on essences in verse and image. The two modes of reflection are entirely co-equal: as one moves through the pages of the book one slips among the verbal and the non-verbal, much as a bird slips between the branches of a tree, landing on one, gliding over another.
The characters of both poems and photographs are distilled, singular, and exquisite.” — Jan & Crispin Elsted.
Price: $450.00