SCHANILEC, Gaylord. ~ A Little Book of Birds.
One of 100 copies. 9 colour wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec plus a wood engraving by Thomas Bewick printed from the original block. Poem by Schanilec handset and printed by him in Bodoni metal type. Unopened as issued making the bird prints as hard to spot as are the birds. 8vo., bound in stiff paper covers of Degener Black and O’Malley Crackle papers. As new.
A remarkable book with some really interesting wood engravings held almost encaged within unopened pages - Schanilec writes “As it turned out my mid-life vessel the “Hungry Mind” (Lac des Pleurs, 2015) didn’t get me to the other side, and A Little Book of Birds led to yet more water. The idea of birds captive within unopened pages was originally intended as a challenge for book collectors= to open the unopened pages - or not. As years passed the birds slowly emerged and their captivity began to mean something else. I thought this book might free the birds. It did not.”
The poem reads ‘A man/with half a brain/sees her carry/her plastic-wrapped lamp/in the rain”.