Kaplinski, Jaan. Translated from the Estonian by Jaan Kaplinski and Sam Hamill.

The Same Sea in Us All: Poems. [Together with a large format pre-publication prospectus/broadside].

Mission, BC, Canada: Barbarian Press, 1985. First edition. Limited edition of 200 copies, this is copy number 108. Hardcover. SIGNED by the author and warmly inscribed by the translator on the half-title to the noted Pacific Northwest poet and artist Cheryl Van Dyke.

xiii, 97pp. Quarto [25cm]; bound in light blue quarter cloth with printed paper over boards. Printed label on spine. Light blue printed dust jacket. Light blue endpapers. Letterpress printed on Mohawk Letterpress paper. Some very light sunning and edgewear to the book, with a tiny nick to the bottom edge of the front board. The dust jacket is sun faded at the spine and (less so) along its top edges. Clean, solid, and square.

TOGETHER WITH a large format pre-publication broadside prospectus for the book: printed in two colors on fine unbleached white stock [43.5 x 21.5 cm]. Features an 11-line poem by Kaplinski and a blurb by Gary Snyder. Near Fine. Very Good + / Very Good +. Item #71438

Signed by the author and inscribed by the translator on the half-title: "Jaan Kaplinski | 13.02.1999" and "To Cheryl | with love — | Sam." The recipient, Cheryl Van Dyke, is a Pacific Northwest poet and artist whose early work, Cheat Grass, helped define the nascent literary landscape of Port Townsend’s Copper Canyon Press in the 1970s. An integral figure in the region's fine press circle, she also managed The Imprint from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s—a bookstore that served as a vital hub for the Pacific Northwest poetry community.

This book was published in an edition of 200 copies, of which this is number 108 (hand-numbered at the colophon). Jaan Kaplinski was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for several years around 2015. The book was bound by Holger Rasmussen. Presswork by Jan Elsted. Design by Crispin Elsted. Handsetting in Jan van Krimpen's 14 Spectrum by Crispin and Jan Elsted and Fred Smith. Rare, especially together here with the pre-publication broadside which matches the aesthetic of the book design.

A beautiful production by Barbarian Press, whose minimalist craft really shines with this work. From their website, "...the press’s style is relatively conservative. Unlike those of many printers of fine books, our backgrounds are in literary studies and writing rather than graphic and studio arts, and we make our books to be read, not merely looked at. We feel that nothing should come between the text and the reader, and it is our view that typography should have, in Robert Bringhurst’s phrase, ‘a statuesque transparency’: like good film music, the best typography is effective to the degree that it is unobtrusive – supporting, not supplanting, the principal experience of the reader. Private press printing is a craft, not an art. The design and making of beautiful books is only secondarily a matter of self-expression; its first excellence is to serve the author and the reader" (http://www.barbarianpress.com/aboutthepress.html).

From the dust jacket's front flap: "Jaan Kaplinski is the foremost living poet of Estonia, a country which cherishes its poets. He is a major spokesman for a culture under siege, a man who sees his country, his language and his roots desperately threatened. His poems range from the proud anger of 'Vercingetorix said' — a poem which has become a testament to freedom in many countries and languages outside Estonia — to the hurtling invocation of 'I UNDERSTOOD', to the contemplative, centred clarity & steadiness of the later lyrics, imbued with Kaplinski's Buddhist convictions. More than an Estonian poet, Jaan Kaplinski is a poet of humanity — in Sam Hamill's phrase, 'a husbandman to the human spirit.' Sam Hamill is widely known as a poet, essayist, translator, teacher, printer and publisher. He teaches writing in the prison systems of Washington and California, and has travelled throughout the US & Canada on reading tours. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983" (Barbarian Press).

Price: $500.00