Poetry – Green Chair Press Blog

Another Patron Saint of Bookbinders

There was a lot of interest in St Bartholomew Day earlier this week. There’s another patron saint of bookbinders (as well as poets): St. Columba. His feast day is June 9 (hopefully I can remember that for next year!) and the story is that he wrote 300 book in his lifetime and went to great lengths to obtain or make copies of valuable manuscripts (he lived 521-597). And this blog tells this rather modern story:

In 540 his first master procured a copy of St. Jerome’s Vulgate. Columba got permission to view it and made a copy of it for his own use. His master, Finnian, on being told of this, laid claim not only to the original but also to the copy. Columba withheld this copy, made by his own hand, and the question of ownership was put before the King of Ireland. Columba lost, the trial ending with King’s decree: “To every cow her calf, and to every book its son-book” (an interesting early case of copyright infringement).

st. columba

Food Poems

A reader sent me a link to a list of favorite food poems, including the one I used in my recent book Persimmons with this lovely photo. Honorable mention went to Shel Silverstein ‘Italian Food,’ a poem I love and used in this silly book.

Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. This little origami fold poetry book, three connected turkish map folds, is by Niko Silvester. One poem is by Shiki Masaoka

In the thawed out pond
A shrimp moves
Among the old algae.

The Saint John’s Fragment

I wanted to buy a book for my collection at Codex, and after a lot of searching for one that had poetry, letterpress, and would be an inspiration for my own work, I settled on Foolscap Press’ The Saint John’s Fragment. The book is based on a unique book by poet David Annwn and calligrapher Thomas Ingmire. The Saint John’s Fragment is a piece from a papyrus codex that measures 3.5 by 2.5 inches at its widest. One side contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the other contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38. David Annwn’s poem “Against the Odds” is in response to the fragment, describing what it looks like, what it might mean, and the mystery of it even existing today. At the end of the poem, a page unfolds with Ingmire’s beautiful calligraphy showing the fragment and the calligraphy shows the image of the actual fragment and the missing extended text (see last image below). See more about the book on Foolscap Press’ website and the original book on Ingmire’s blog. Below, click on the pictures to see a much large image.

Mark Strand

I was sad to hear that poet Mark Strand died yesterday. I did this book with his poem Lines for Winter using Hedi Kyle’s crown binding. The poem starts

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—

Read the rest here. And more poems here. There’s a nice obit on the Paris Review website.

Winter

Persimmons

I’m designing a new book with some sewing and a poem by Li-Young Lee called persimmons. Finding just the right color thread or yarn has been a challenge.