Deepening Snow: Haiku and Tanka
East Burke, VT: Plowboy Press, 2012. Wrappers. Fine binding. Item #9786
Square octavo. [74] pp. Limited edition, one of 100 numbered copies. Letterpress printed in light blue and black on cream colored Hahnemuhle Gutenberg with seven section titles on variously colored Hahnemuhle Bugra with matching ink. Sewn in the Japanese retchoso style, bound in Barcham Green Hayle handmade paper with an acrylic wash, and housed in a folder covered in stained Tyvek with title letterpress printed in black on spine and cover in Japanese and English respectively. A fine copy.
Born and educated in Tokyo, Oishi settled and raised her family in Vermont. She writes in the Author's Note that her haiku and tanka began "as daily message to my parents, trying to give them a picture of my life [in Vermont]. Gradually, I began using that daily practice as a way to make sense of living in two worlds." These poems, printed in Japanese with Chalmer's graceful English translation, are beautiful evocative, and, as Chalmer writes in the Translator's Notes, "open a path to memory and fresh discovery of the here and now." Andrew Miller-Brown presents them in this elegant volume, a poem per page with English translation set in Legacy Sans on the inner half of the page and the Japanese set in Kozuka Mincho Pro in the outer half. Everything about this work is thoughtful and understated, from the sewing method that leaves the spine exposed but sewing invisible to the simple acrylic wash depicting a snow field on the cover; all the elements come together creating a powerful book.
Price: $300.00