Santiago/The Glimpse
I have in my possession a number of prints by Hilary Paynter, a particular favourite being her substantial Symonds Yat, which was given to me as a birthday present some years ago by my friend, the poet-philosopher, David Whyte. He, in his turn, had written the poem ‘Santiago’ in response to seeing Hilary’s The Glimpse, a print of which his wife was subsequently able to obtain for him from Hilary for a more recent birthday.
I discussed with David the possibility of a co-publishing arrangement of some kind between his company, Many Rivers Press, and the Perpetua Press, whereby we would issue jointly a series of posters, each one featuring a poem by David together with a wood engraving. Naturally, given our shared enthusiasm for Hilary’s work, we thought we would start by seeing whether she would be prepared to let us use The Glimpse for our first poster. We were delighted that she readily agreed.
The poster has been printed by letterpress using Caslon type by Pat Randle at Nomad Letterpress, who is now an enthusiastic contributor to the project. This is the first in a series of 12 posters, which can be obtained in the US from David Whyte for $95 +p&p (www.davidwhyte.com) or in the UK from Edward Wates for £70 + p&p (ewates62@gmail.com).