Thirty Clouds - Tapa blanda

IN PRAISE OF CLARISSA UPCHURCH:

‘Her technical capacity for depicting momentum and instances of stillness within movement, much like cinematic freeze frame is fascinating and hypnotic.’

– Renee Ballerini, Literati

‘An artist who has developed and exercised a mastery over her media; so that the experience of the depicted scene is returned to the experience of the worked surface.’    

– Edward Winters

IN PRAISE OF GEORGE SZIRTES:

‘Any new collection from George Szirtes will treat its readers to a unique poetic combination: immense versatility and virtuosity when it comes to form, but also a tireless sympathy.’

– Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

‘ ... a unique voice, in which the Europe of fantasists, fable-Europe, golem-Europe, dream-Europe, the Europe of Schulz and Singer and Chagall, comes into English and is by no means domesticated.’

– Salman Rushdie

This book is a collaboration between visual artist Clarissa Upchurch and poet George Szirtes. Upchurch’s images came first and the text followed based on free interpretations in the form of cinquains combined with prose poems.

The thirty visual works here are all based on monoprints, a process whereby ink is printed directly from freshly painted metal surface, so each printed image is unique. It offers painterly effects hard to achieve by other printing methods.

The cinquain is a poetic form invented by the American poet Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914). It consists of five lines that break down into a syllabic pattern of 2-4-6-8-2. The effect can be that of the breath expanding for the first four lines then being let out in the fifth.