In today’s edition of #Fine Press Friday, we offer Paul Petrie’s Strange Gravity designed by Freeman Keith of the Stinehour Press and Charles E. Wadsworth of the Tidal Press. Our copy is one of 300 case-bound copies printed letterpress in Monotype Centaur and Arrighi on Mohawk Superfine Text in 1984 by the Stinehour Press in Lunenburg, Vermont. Wadsworth’s original drawings for the book were reproduced in offset lithography by the Meriden Gravure Company in Meriden, Connecticut.
This work is described as a collection of songs rather than a collection of poetry by the author, with the consideration that they were composed with meter, rhyme, and especially pitch in mind, acknowledged by Petrie in the foreword as not being particularly in style during the time of publishing. He writes, “My one worry is not the suitability of the genre to the age, but the worthiness of these particular poems to their kind.” Much of this collection carries a melancholy feeling that is echoed by the soft black and white illustrations that depict gentle, sweeping movement with ease. The poetry and illustrations hint towards a waning interest in continuing life, particularly the first and title poem Strange Gravity:
What but some huger, darker planet
swimming out of the night
could break this ancient spell and wean me
from this green world of light?
The Stinehour Press, founded by the legendary Rocky Stinehour, was one of the premier fine-press publishers in the country from 1952 to 2008. The Meriden Gravure Company was a venerable, quality offset-printing company founded in 1888 that merged with Stinehour in 1977 and closed in 1989, with its presses moved to the Stinehour Press. Rocky Stinehour died in 2016 at the age of 91.
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