Saturday Nights in Marietta (1999)

The 1999 Minnesota Center for Book Arts winter publication opens with the warm sentience of a summer night: the sibilant echo of grass swaying at night, the aroma of burnt grass, the dark translucence of trees in full leaf. “Summer 1961,” in which these images appear, is the first of fifteen new poems collected in Saturday Nights in Marietta, MCBA’s eleventh Winter Book.

Realized in traditional codex form, Saturday Nights in Marietta is available in deluxe, standard, and chapbook editions designed by Amy Kirkpatrick under the direction of Mary Jo Pauly; deluxe and standard editions are signed by the author and include fifteen illustrative prints executed by artists/printers nationally recognized for their interpretive vision and technical skill. Text in all editions is letterpress printed from monotype Van Dijk on Mohawk vellum under the supervision of MCBA Printing Artist-in-Residence Michael Fallon.

The Deluxe Edition (lettered A through Z) includes text pages and fifteen accompanying signed prints (housed in slotted pages for ordinal viewing or easy removal for framing) bound in a stab-sewn album structure, with laced and woven vellum over green leather at the spine. Covers (hand-made indigo-dyed flax paper over board) open to reveal flyleaves of hand-made paper from hostas and daylilies; the book is housed in a barn wood and leather box measuring 8-1/4″ x 7-1/4″ x 1″. Deluxe edition box and binding is designed and fabricated by Dennis Ruud, with hand-made paper by Mary Hark.

The Standard Edition (numbered 1 through 125) includes text pages and fifteen accompanying signed prints as above bound in a stab-sewn album structure, with stiff paper covers of Moulin de Larroque Colombe, encased in a wrapper of raw board and poplin measuring 10-3/4″ x 6-1/2″ x 1″, all designed and executed by Jill Jevne.

The Chapbook, or reader’s edition, presents the text in a stab-sewn album structure with paper covers accompanied by a single frontispiece illustration by Michael Fallon.

Text by Robert Bly
Illustrations by various artists
Designed by Amy Brooks Kirkpatrick under the direction of Mary Jo Pauly
Printed under the direction of Michael Sean Fallon
Deluxe binding designed by Dennis Ruud
Hand-made paper by Mary Hark