A Landscape with Cows In It
Newark, VT: Janus Press, 1987. Boards. Very Good+ binding. Item #11657
Octavo-sized accordion. Limited edition, one of 150 copies, signed by Fine and Burke; this copy additionally inscribed and presented by Van Vliet. 9 irregularly sized pages, accordion folded, with an irregularly sized 24-page pamphlet sewn between [7] and [8], all unnumbered. 34" long linoleum cut is affixed behind the text of the accordion. The image is most clearly visible from the verso, but its inclusion is gauzy as it is always viewed through a thin leaf of Japanese paper. Housed in a paper-over-flexible boards folder. Folder is slightly sunned, else Fine or very nearly.
The book seems straightforward as accordion books go, but then a pamphlet is sewn in the middle. This makes impossible the impulse to access the illustration that is floating behind the sheet of paper on which the poem is printed. It becomes clear, that the landscape is "fogged in" like the cows in Burke's poem. Sitting with Van Vliet in her Newark, VT studio, she watched me fumble with the book and with a sly smile asked me to hand it to her. She expanded the accordion and deftly set it on a nearby window sill where the image shown clear and bright with the sunlight pouring in from behind. She says, "If you read the poem, you understand. I'm always trying to get readers to slow down." She then remarks, that this has always been among her favorites. A wonderful structure that Van Vliet would employ again in her most recent work, Fugal. Fine, The Janus Press 1981-1990, p. 41.
Price: $300.00