It’s Fine Press Friday!
Crucifix in a Deathhand a collection of poems by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), was published by Loujon Press in 1965. Gypsy Lou Webb and Jon Webb of Loujon produced the book in New Orleans, handsetting the type in Bulmer, Roman, American Uncial, printing on Linweave Spectra paper in various colors, and completing the binding by hand. The book was released in a limited edition of 3,100 copies which, according to the colophon were delivered “as they were completed to publisher Lyle Stuart, Inc, N.Y.C.” Noel Rockmore (1928-1995) composed the etchings that illustrate the cover and the three sections of poems.
The front flap of the book boasts, earnestly, of Bukowski’s focus on the surface, certain that this allows him to “remain in control of the indisputable, the unquestionable…” Confident, then, in his truer and more objective vision, this laudatory flap concludes: “It is precisely his refusal to become trapped in the cerebral that marks the savage quality, the surface dynamism of Bukowski’s poetry.” A wonder, a marvel that Bukowski remained so unclouded by subjective experience as the rest of us. (In fairness, the poems themselves may be richer and less obnoxious than the way certain people talk about them.)
Bukowski humbly attributed the wild success of his previous collection It Catches My Heart in its Hands (also produced by Loujon), to the book’s aesthetic more than his writing. The publishers expressed their hope that this evocative new edition would be “comparably embarrassing” in its effect on readers.
See other National Poetry Month posts!
See more Fine Press Friday highlights!
--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern
