What We’re Reading: FOSSIL

Fossil by BJ Love and Friedrich Kerksieck (illustrations by Cherie Weaver)

Getting books like this in the mail make my week. Why? Because books such as this are the reason I review books: to find and share beautiful, artful books with wonderful writers who aren’t talked about in the main literary reviews, but SHOULD BE, goshdarnit!

Fossil is a book of collaborative poems between BJ Love and Friedrich Kerksieck (yes, that’s the Kerksieck of Small Fires Press, of which I am FAN NUMERO UNO). The book is primarily for Dusie Kollektiv No. 5, an online poetry journal, which also publishes books via Dusie Press, of which I knew nothing until I received this packet o’ mail. (Again, another reason why I do these here blog posts, to discover new awesome literary gems.)

Reasons Why I Love This Beauty (And Why You Should, Too):

1.) The Poetry: These poems take on a bony, jurassic tone (no surprise there, with an apt title like Fossil), but with the playful voice of an off-kilter-in-a-sweet-way narrator. Things are twisted and bloody; regret tinges some lines, as does loss; love is alluded to; and silliness finds its poignancy.

A few lines to titillate you:

When I discover my dinosaur I will name it after you
as my way of saying that I’m sorry for the avalanche
& for allowing you to roll away with it

(from “It Was A Discovery!”)

Let us set something in stone: Apology is
an invention that is still a few years off

& that is why I can never be sorry, but
what I can tell you now is that, when your

fossil is found, I hope everyone will love it
just like I do & though I can never promise

anything this sweet, or even milkshake sweet,
what I can promise is to hate every evolution

that removes you further & further from me.

(from “Lava! Lava! Lava!”)

2.) Craftsmanship: I don’t even need to spell out my love of letterpress anymore, you get it. Kerksieck is one of the best. With this cover, understated is edgy. With white ink on light, natural-colored handmade paper, you have to get close and study the page.

Not only does Kerksieck shame all of us other letterpress fiends, he also blows us away with his book-making craftsmanship. His books are some of the most beautiful I have seen. The binding is simple, yet elegant. The back cover is cardboard, and the internal pages are three sets of vellum pages, that fold out to make a sort of three columned pamphlet. The text and color illustrations are printed on opposite sides of these vellum pages. Each poem has its own column, totaling nine poems.

Each thoughtful element in the creation echoes in every way. Transparency, layers, the ability to pull the audience in for a closer look, and noticeable subtlety are all reoccurring themes. There is always something else waiting patiently for you to discover it underneath the opaque surface (need I go as far as to say, like the ancient bones of dinosaurs? Nah, you made that connection already, you intelligent readers, you).

3.) Illustrations: The color illustrations here, by Cherie Weaver, are geometric shapes strung together. Each fold-out panel has its own illustration in a different color (orange, pink, and purple). The designs are intriguing, and complement the text with their bare bones appearance, but also don’t steal the show.

What books have you encountered where the design and craftsmanship echo the text?