Squarings, a sequence of forty-eight poems by Seamus Heaney, with forty-eight new drawings by Sol LeWitt and with an introduction by Helen Vendler, 2003.

Seamus Heaney is one of the most widely appreciated poets writing today. A Nobel Laureate, Heaney has written poetry that is read wherever English is spoken, and that has been translated all over the world. The critic Helen Vendler, who introduces this edition, described Heaney's 1975 volume North as "one of the crucial poetic interventions of the twentieth century", ranking it with T. S. Eliot's Prufrock for "its key role in the history of modern poetry". Vendler considers "Squarings" the most important of Heaney's later series of poems.

The artist Sol LeWitt responded to the poetry by making forty-eight drawings in the summer of 2003, each six inches square. The underlying patterns are grids of straight and not-straight (wavy) lines, either horizontal or vertical, in four schemes conforming to the four sections: an all-over pattern; above-below; left-right; and a square within a square (inside/outside). On top of the patterns the artist drew "scribbles", as he describes the drawings in captions.

The book was designed by Andrew Hoyem and produced by Arion Press with type cast for this edition by Mackenzie & Harris. The format is squarish, 10-7/8 by 10 inches, 126 pages. The poetry was handset in 24-point Deepdene type, produced in 1927-28 by Frederic W. Goudy, one of the most beautiful faces of America's greatest type designer. The poems occupy a square area, the same size as the six-inch square drawings opposite. The introduction, captions, and other subsidiary matter are set in smaller sizes of the same type. The drawings were scanned to make negatives for photopolymer plates, proofed for approval of the artist, then printed along with the text by letterpress on a two-color cylinder press, both operating with black ink, using one unit for the plates, the other unit for the type, to control the inking. The paper is Pescia, a mould-made sheet from the Magnani mill in Italy. The binding has been done by hand in the Arion bindery. The signatures have been sewn with linen thread over linen tapes. The cover is full gray cloth over boards, bearing a design that is an enlarged reference to the straight and curved lines underlying the LeWitt drawings. The book is enclosed in a darker gray cloth slipcase.

This is the sixty-seventh publication of the Arion Press. The edition is limited to 400 numbered copies for sale and 26 lettered copies for complimentary distribution to participants in the project. All copies are signed by the poet and the artist. The price of the book is $950.

Click here to reserve copy.

Back to Arion Press Page