Squarings

Previously catalogued as M-19

Squarings, a sequence of 48 poems by Seamus Heaney, with 48 drawings by Sol LeWitt, introduction by Helen Vendler, 2003. This was the sixty-seventh publication of Arion Press. The book was printed by letterpress from handset foundry type and Monotype composition. The LeWitt drawings were scanned and negatives were used to make photopolymer plates for letterpress printing. The edition consists of 400 numbered copies for sale and 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution. All copies are signed by the poet and artist. The images are six inches square, the size of facing poems, four stanzas of three lines, which then back up the prints exactly. The book format is 10-7/8 by 10 inches. The paper is Pescia, mouldmade in Italy. The printing was done by Arion Press. The book was designed by Andrew Hoyem. He arranged the series of four sets of twelve images, of grids of straight and not-straight (wavy) lines, either horizontal or vertical, overlaid with “scribbles”, in the order of 1) an all-over pattern, 2) above-below, 3) left-right, 4) a square within a square (inside-outside), with the approval of the artist. The cover design is by Andrew Hoyem, an enlarged reference to the straight and curved lines underlying the LeWitt drawings.