These are four pages from a book I am very proud to have published (in 1996). Celestine Frost often integrates poems into drawings, or drawings into poems and her verbo-visual work is often unforgettable. Her lyrics too strike right through me, even when she's not using her formidable draftsmanship. The care with which poems are placed en face in her books cannot be too strongly emphasized...order in general is pretty much done with the precision of an Organon.
Here's what she wrote in the back of this book: "This has been an inquiry into the origins of lyric thought. The drawings and the photograph which accompany the poems are not illustrations but are an integral part of that thinking."
The book had some strong partisan support but I blame myself for not getting better distribution for this wonderful book. Robert Fitterman was particularly generous and astute in his recognition of Frost's talent, as were some of the verbo-visual poets, who are actually more familiar with her work since she published quite regularly at that time in their magazines.
If I die suddenly, please contact my mom and rescue the copies of Celestine Frost's books from my Mom's basement as a few hundred copies are still stored there. There are copies sealed in shrink wrap and well boxed so they should be okay. My access to these books was compromised when my brother's marriage went into a sudden, violent disintegration and he moved a large house's entire furnishings and other contents into my mom's garage and basement. I came looking for the books one day and it was like looking into a forest of chair and table legs deeper than the one in Grimm's fairy tales.
I saw a copy of this book for sale on ABE the other week for 75 dollars. I thought, that seller knows writing built to last when he sees it.
A toi, Celestine!
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