#nathaniel tarn

[irisbleufic]

—from “Unravelling / Shock,” by Nathaniel Tarn

[cutiewithawakenedheart]

"The unexamined lives of all

these trees so much alive and yet so

silent."

----Nathaniel Tarn

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Nathaniel Tarn - Lyrics for the Bride of God / Section: The Artemision - Tree Books - 1973

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday!

This week we present Four Odes, One Song by Noble prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, translated by the noted American writer and anthropologist Nathaniel Tarn. It was designed and illustrated by Richard Bigus in the summer of 1990 for his Labyrinth Editions in Honolulu, Hawaii. The book is one of the many wonderful donations from our friend Jerry Buff, printed in an edition of 100 copies, all signed by the translator and the artist/printer.  The typeface is Bembo Roman and italic; the poetry was handset by the printer, and the prose set in 13 point Monotype composition by Harold Berliner’s Type Foundry. The illustrations and decorative cover papers were printed letterpress from photo-mechanical zinc relief engravings and linoleum blocks. The binding and boxes were executed under the supervision of Mary-Margaret Gallaway and Priscilla Spitler at BookLab, Inc. All copies were printed on dampened paper made by Bob Serpa of Imago Hand Paper Mill.

In 1974, Richard Bigus was a student at Cowell College in Santa Cruz, studying under William Everson, and producing broadsides of his poetry. He also studied printing with Jack Stauffacher in California, and later went on to study graphic art at Yale. In 1977, Bigus printed Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Typography at Yale University School of Art using a Vandercook proof press. Bigus has taught at a number of universities in Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, New Zealand, and Hawaii.

A few weeks ago we highlighted California printmaker Tom Killion’s book Fortress Marin, which was designed by Richard Bigus. Killion and Bigus met when they were both students in Santa Cruz, and they have collaborated on a number of books and broadsides over the years. It’s fascinating how many lines of connection there are in the world of fine press printing!

View more Fine Press Friday posts.

–Sarah, Special Collections Undergraduate Assistant

[cutiewithawakenedheart]

"Sun falls on leaves

a blessing lighting their myriad veins: it is

as if the air itself were sung with joy."

----Nathaniel Tarn

[cutiewithawakenedheart]

"Far from the world of corporations

in murderous contention, the forest wonders

how men will last."

----Nathaniel Tarn

[thrillbandit]

Unravelling / Shock

A hole torn in the fabric of the world, the web, the whole infernal weave through which life-giving rain is falling but mixing with the tears and with the blood. Dead body-snatchers enter, the mega-corpses, much in the news these days, enter and grind bones, flesh and sinews down to dry tree bark, mixing with tree bark, crawling with the demonic beetles. They’ll tell it later: “No one expected this”: not one—patient, doctors, practitioners of every stripe, no one except the one whose daily work is close to prophecy, who feels it in his nerves or in her muscles—where news travels up fast and lodges in the eyes, all-seeing, all-pervading vision of disaster. And comes in like a mouse, wee small, [wee modest, so wee, wee practical,] mouse with big ears and popping eyes, looking this way and that and not one tittle-tattle fazed by your huge presence. Later drowns in a bucket with a lizard: everything drowns round here getting to water. Not able to get out again. Thus coming quietly, thus probing, [thus stealing in,] squatting thus quietly back of the house: how do the tears well up, well down again, what makes them well, the seeing eyes know not, what routes the change parent-to-orphan? Stop. Orphan-to-parent? Stop. Then back again to tears? Look out beyond the healthy trees preserved in a close circle round the house for privacy, look out the window over hills and dales of this milagro country, see living green, see dying brown—on each and every morning mourn the trees. Criminal imbeciles who run the shows we live in from top to bottom of their slimy theater, have now decreed they will not solve the water. Matter of fact, they will not solve what we are made of—the high percentage water in all of us compounded. They will not solve a single problem by the name of life we give to human business. They will prefer to dip their steel in blood, to let the semen drip from off of their steel into the blood and thus contaminate, infuse with every cancer both body politic and body not so politic, just private, single, individual—but gives to other individuals their mien and color. Ghosts walk the hills and dales between the dying trees. “Remember now,” they say, with stab at tragic countenance, [for when can privacy enter into collective?] “those days, those days you took no notice of, counting them poor, dispersing them among the memories you could not value at their true worth, you could not recognize enough to feel: who knows if these few days, [these very days], were not those ones we lived together here, the only paradise?”

Nathaniel Tarn

[kaggsy59]

Penguin Modern Poets 7 – Richard Murphy, Jon Silkin, Nathaniel Tarn

Penguin Modern Poets 7 – Richard Murphy, Jon Silkin, Nathaniel Tarn

Well. Don’t all faint with shock, but after my agonising back in June about my failure with challenges and the like, I have actually got going again with a project I started back in 2015 (gulp) – that of reading all 27 of the Penguin Modern Poets collections…. I even gave the project its own page on the site (which is still thereand you can go and have an explore if this interests you); and I…

View On WordPress