Limited to an edition of 140 copies numbered and signed by the author. Published for the one hundredth anniversary of Robinson Jeffers's birth, The Poet is Dead was printed letterpress on a Vandercook Proof Press, using handset Weiss Roman and Weiss Initials Series II types. The illustrations were cut in linoleum by Tom Killion, proprietor of Quail Press in Santa Cruz. The all-rag paper was handmade and the edition was full-bound in leather by the printers, Peter and Donna Thomas. Although the text of Everson's elegy to Jeffers has been available to readers for thirty-four years, in this edition Everson includes a new strophe of nine lines, and corrects the errors that crept into previous printings, making this the definitive version. Everson's discovery of Jeffers in 1934 crystallized Everson's own vocation as poet, changing his life. When Jeffers died in 1962, Everson was moved to compose the first inception of The Poet is Dead. Everson himself died in 1994. Books by Peter and Donna Thomas were featured in the 1995 UWM Library exhibit The Contemporary Fine Press. |
William Everson.