Cosmogonie Intime - An Intimate Cosmogony

A fine press book from Moving Parts Press.

French poet Yves Peyra has composed five poems, a sequence that carries the poet himself and his generation through time and space, touching base regularly to evoke a familiar name, a place, a far-gone era. These poems are at once intimate and universal, offering readers insight, revelation and passage on a poetic journey that illuminates our common ground. The pen-and-ink drawings by Ray Rice are enriched with multiple colors using the pochoir or stenciling process. The deluxe edition is hand-painted in watercolor throughout by the artist.

This 10 x 15 inch accordion-fold book extends to 18 feet. The binding adheres to the model of the livre dartiste; the bookblock rests in a printed paper cover wrapped in glassine. It is housed in a paper slipcase and a cloth-covered box. On eighteen of the twenty sheets that make up the book, long narrow text and drawings mirror one another, the verso English, the recto French, the drawings running to either side of the gutter.

Translation done by Elizabeth R. Jackson. Bookwork done by Felicia Rice. Critical Comentary done by Rosemary Lloyd.