A Coney Island of the Mind is the seventy-fourth publication of the Arion Press. The book was designed and produced under the direction of Andrew Hoyem. The format is folio, 16 by 10 inches, 48 pages. The types are handset Goudy Light and Goudy Heavy. The text was printed by letterpress. The prints were scanned from the original drawings and printed on an Epson 4000. The paper is mouldmade Hahnemühle Bugra, its color and texture similar to the handmade paper of Kitaj's drawings. The book is handsewn over tapes and bound in boards with brown cloth spine and paper sides, and is housed in a slipcase. The layout of the pages is generous for the presentation of the poetry. The scale of the pages and care in hand composition has allowed for refinements to the typography and placement of lines in Ferlinghetti's "open field" style. With the cooperation of the poet Arion Press has achieved a distinct improvement to the text over the restrictive settings found in the trade editions.

In accord with the title and the aesthetics of the poetry and the artworks, the design of the book is purposely and playfully disorienting. The titling on the sides of the slipcase curves like a rollercoaster. On the cover, the author's name and the image by Kitaj are rotated so that the book must be turned sideways to be seen as intended. Similarly, the title on the title page runs up, and is on the left while the frontispiece is on the right, the profile facing the title page, in contravention of the bibliographical convention of title/recto, frontis/verso. The poems are not titled but are numbered in bold figures, turned ninety degrees at the corners. When a poem continues onto a second page there is no number. Thus, since these are not page numbers, some numbers on versos are odd and some on rectos are even, again the opposite of what might be expected bibliographically. The physical book pays homage to the durability of the poetry and the poet, a grand old man of conscience for this world.

THE EDITION
The edition is limited to three hundred numbered copies for sale and twenty-six lettered copies for complimentary distribution. All copies are signed by the poet and the artist. The price is $650 per copy.

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