Three Poems by Simic Charles (5 results)

Hard cover. Condition: Acceptable. Acceptable condition. Clean pages, intact binding.

Condition: Good. Poetry broadside including "The Spoon", "Tools" and "Sands" from the Unicorn Folio album Series 2, No. 4, printed by Noel Young and designed by Alan Brilliant, limited to 350 copies. Single folded sheet measuring 6.5 x 8 inches. Noted in McNeil A14a.

Clockworks Press (illustrator). small folio. loose signatures, clamshell box. Etchings by Holly Brown. Privately printed in an edition of only twelve numbered copies signed by Charles Simic and Holly Brown on the colophon. Fine in fine clamshell box. Printed in Giovanni Mardersteig's Dante typeface by Michael and Katherine Russem of the Kat Ran Press, North Andover, MA, from types cast by Michael and Winifred Bixler, Skaneateles, NY. The etchings, inspired by the poems "Mirrors at 4 A.M.," "A Book Full of Pictures," and "Late Train," were drawn and printed on Arches Cover by the artist. The clamshell boxes were made by Sarah Provoncha, Plains, PA, and covered in Japanese book cloth. Winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and U.S. Poet Laureate for 2007-08, Charles Simic (1938-2023) wrote moving, surrealistic poetry often based on his own experiences, particularly his traumatic childhood in what was then Yugoslavia. loose signatures, clamshell box.

No binding. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Folio. (13)ff, comprising title sheet, colophon, eight original etchings, and three poems by Simic: "Mirrors at 4 A.M.," "A Book Full of Pictures," and "Late Train." The etching and poems are divided into three printed folders. Simic is one of the most lauded poets of the latter half of the 20th century and well into the 21st, holding positions as the poetry editor of The Paris Review, a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and 15th United States Poet Laureate. This small selection of poems reflects aptly reflects his direct word choice, his feel for meter and rhythm, and his attention to small but defining, often irrevocable moments in the common human experience. There is throughout a feeling of something slipping away, a personal encapsulation of a larger cultural phenomenon in modernity's turn away from intimacy and toward the collective. Brown's accompanying images are suitably atmospheric, composed of a geometry in which the pieces do not quite fit together. Printed by Michael and Katherine Russem of the Kat Ran Press. Sheets held in solander box covered in blue silk. One tip of box glancingly bumped, else fine. First edition. One of twelve copies, signed by Simic and Brown.

No. 6 OF 12 COPIES. 360 x 285 mm. (14 x 11 1/4"). [8] leaves of text. Unbound, as issued, in original blue cloth box by Sarah Provoncha. WITH EIGHT ETCHINGS by Holly Brown. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR on the limitation page. SIGNED BY THE ILLUSTRATOR on all etchings. With publisher's announcement sheet laid in. As new. This oversized artist's book production is a poetic, visual, and typographic collaboration with especially happy results. Charles Simic (1938-2023), winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in poetry and U.S. Poet Laureate for 2007-08, wrote moving, surrealistic poetry based on his own experiences, particularly his traumatic childhood in what was then Yugoslavia. The three poems included here--"Mirrors at 4 A.M.," "A Book Full of Pictures," and "Late Train"--take mundane experiences and imbue them with a sense of magical unreality, creating a surreal world of lush imagery through which winds a miasma of emotion. The sensual illustrations by printmaker Holly Brown perfectly reflect the dreamlike quality of the text: recognizable forms emerge from a hazy background, blurring the line between the known and unknown. Brown established Clockworks Press while still a student, and the present work was her Honors Thesis project at Syracuse University. The production is of an exceptionally high quality, with the text printed in Giovanni Mardersteig's Dante type by Michael and Katherine Russem of the Kat Ran Press. This copy is from the collection of Laure-Anne Bosselaar (b. 1943) and her husband Kurt Brown (1944-2013). Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, and editor who has published numerous works of poetry in multiple languages, including five collections of her own works. She has received various prizes and recognitions (Pushcart, Isabella Gardner, Breadloaf) and was named Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara in 2019. Sometimes publishing jointly with Bosselaar, Brown was also a prolific poet and editor of anthologies, as well as the founder and first director of the Aspen Writer's Conference, playing a pivotal role in shaping its early vision and establishing Aspen as a literary center. It was through the Aspen Writer's Conference that Bosselaar and Brown became friends with Simic, when Brown invited Simic to speak at the conference in the early 1990s. Bosselaar, reminiscing on a friendship of over two decades, wrote that "Charlie . . . and Kurt had a great friendship, and shared a common love for wine & poetry--so, often, the Simics would come to our house, and we'd have a 'good bottle' or two around a dinner I'd cook for them.".