“A Short Story of Falling” by Alice Oswald

A forthcoming publication of Alice Oswald´s poems by Andrew Moorhouse is been printed by John Grice at Evergreen Press.

“I look forward to thinking about all forms of poetry, but particularly the fugitive airborne forms.”
Alice Oswald

About the engravings

The metal plates printed in this book were traced with aid of “Burmester” curves, wooden templates developed at the end of the nineteenth century for technical drawings in industrial design and architecture. I was trying to rediscover these obsolete tools by applying them in a way they weren’t intended. Instead of just using segments of these curves, I used the entire
template, rotating it from a single fixed point with intervals of just a few millimeters. The drawing process was very slow, but little by little a figure emerged on the surface of the plate, with lines that seemed to vibrate as they crossed around an empty center.

The same template can be used for two or three different drawings; by changing the point of rotation, completely unexpected things happen. In this sense the working process is more intuitive than rational. I can’t control the final outcome, I just keep going, supporting the drawing as it grows and observing whether or not it develops its own presence. The decision of when to stop depends on the boundaries of the paper. A drawing only can expand within these physical limits, but it can also grow inside them, into its own depth.
I would liken this to the paradox of freedom.

Maribel Mas, Leipzig 2020
Text edited by David Burnett

Alice Oswald
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alice-oswald

Fine Press Poetry
http://www.finepresspoetry.com/about.html#