{"id":790,"date":"2016-05-09T14:14:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T14:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/?p=790"},"modified":"2016-05-09T14:14:46","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T14:14:46","slug":"baskins-crane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/2016\/05\/09\/baskins-crane\/","title":{"rendered":"Baskin’s Crane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Baskin1\"<\/a>[Posted by Justin Martin for ENG 812 Modern Poetry, Professor Rosen]<\/p>\n

Hart Crane\u2019s visage (who could mistake his decimating eyes) stares from atop a torso-like mass of dark veins and lines on the second title page of Voyages: Six Poems by Hart Crane<\/em>, an artistic rendering of Crane\u2019s celebrated erotic suite published 25 years after his suicide. The poems, which feature threads of nautical imagery throughout, take on strange new meaning in the print: \u201cThe sea lifts, also, it\u2019s reliquary hands.\u201d Hart Crane now lies somewhere within that sea, and his poetry continues to find new light and appreciation in his absence, in this case in the accompaniment of Leonard Baskin\u2019s wood engravings, which, as well, are a part of the bold title card pasted to the front of the book\u2019s four-fold case.<\/p>\n

Leonard Baskin, born in 1922, was 10 years old when Hart Crane passed away. In 1942, while studying at Yale University, Baskin founded the Gehenna Press, initially for the purpose of publishing fine pressings of his own works – the company\u2019s first two releases were books of Baskin\u2019s own poetry and wood engravings, respectively. These first two books, On a Pyre of Withered Roses<\/em> and A Little Book of Natural History<\/em>, were published nine years apart, the second\u2019s release delayed by Baskin\u2019s time serving in WWII. Baskin\u2019s purpose in founding and developing the Gehenna Press, one might speculate, was to follow the lead of William Blake\u2019s duality as poet and bookmaker. Leonard\u2019s poetry on its own never claimed much right to legacy, but he certainly had insights into the workings of the craft and an appreciation for influential predecessors like Crane.<\/p>\n

\"Baskin2\"<\/a>The book itself mimics the qualities Crane takes on at times in the Voyages<\/em>: sensitive, textured, always hinting at something deep and monstrous beyond the surface. Crane\u2019s poetry is printed on Amalfi handmade paper, accompanied by seven of Baskin\u2019s engravings printed in one instance on the aforementioned Amalfi paper, but for the most part on much thinner, transparent japanese paper, which is, in one instance, bound into the book\u2019s spine, and, otherwise, pasted quite precariously onto the other, thicker pages.<\/p>\n

One particular print, a circular design which frames an abstract landscape of lines and fractured details, accompanies the third voyage, perhaps the most iconic of the six, on a green sheet of the thin japanese which is pasted across the top edge, horizontally, to the opposite page, left to hang unglued on all other sides, like some ghastly hanging curtain. Scattered vertical line fragments in the wave-like texture resemble \u201cribboned water lanes…\/ laved and scattered\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Baskin3\"<\/a>The book held at the Watkinson is one of 975 copies originally printed, all by hand. It is a slender little thing. The cover is worn, presumably by time. It commands a certain amount of spectacle as its quad-folding encasement opens at all angles, only to reveal the actual book inside to be near-identical to the encasement\u2019s cover. The book itself forces one to be intimate with it: the thin, fragile Japanese pages peer out from behind their thicker, whiter counterparts, and, as one progresses through the Voyages<\/em>, prove to be pasted in at differing angles, prompting one to constantly adjust their attention so as to avoid tearing the things out.<\/p>\n

One of Baskin\u2019s most powerful contributions to the poetry: the sprawling circuitry of a beak emerging from the engraving accompanying Voyage IV. The bird lies motionless on the page, its talons seemingly hanging from the mess of intricate lines which makes up the bird\u2019s body (so delicately spacing out and unraveling within its breast). The cut is a haunting rendition of, perhaps, the \u201cchilled albatross\u2019 white immutability\u201d.<\/p>\n

A print of Voyages<\/em> by Gehenna and the Museum of Modern Art could cost anywhere between $200 and $700, depending on wear on the copy and whether it is signed or not, and can be found fairly easily via a google search or on websites like Abebooks.com.<\/p>\n

\"Baskin4\"<\/a>The print can be taken as a work firstly and perhaps solely done by Baskin himself, since its publishing date, 1957, is before Baskin turned over his position as sole printer of the Gehenna Press. Baskin obviously wanted to not only present, but interact with the poetry in his printing, creating an entirely new experience out of Crane\u2019s Voyages<\/em>, intimately giving texture, in both the two- and three-dimensional senses, to his verses. Crane\u2019s eyes in his portrait seem to speak to this intimacy; their openness spills down into the sharp and tense mass of tendrils below, within the ribcage.<\/p>\n

\"Baskin5\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Posted by Justin Martin for ENG 812 Modern Poetry, Professor Rosen] Hart Crane\u2019s visage (who could mistake his decimating eyes) stares from atop a torso-like mass of dark veins and lines on the second title page of Voyages: Six Poems by Hart Crane, an artistic rendering of Crane\u2019s celebrated erotic suite published 25 years after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,13,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":796,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}