Bohince & Obadike Response

I'm going to focus my post on something a little different than usual. I'll get to the content of the books near the end, but I really want to bring up the tangible, physical element of reading this past week's books. In the past few months, I've become increasingly interested in book design. I'm currently taking a design course and have found it a new hobby to find books, which, despite the old adage, can be judged by their covers (so to say). It is hardest to judge poetry books, I feel, because the craft inside can always differ, despite the design. In addition, in the small-press world of poetry, it is hard to use "good" (i.e. high-production) design due to finances and limited printings. Despite this, I feel that the books by Obadike and Bohince lend themselves to design judgment.

Beginning with the cover of Bohince's Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, it is important to notice the sharp colors and textures used (notice the soft drop-shading of the title - it is the same forest green used on the back cover). There is consistency in the text layout and an ambiguously bold image (consider Lerner's Lichtenberg Figures). Inside the book, details like the embossed maker's page invite the reader in and create the sense that the book at hand has been carefully appended. Likewise, the soft, speckled creme pages add a semi-rustic feel, complementing the content.

Obadike's Armor and Flesh, then, is an extreme away from Bayonet Woods. The cover features a bold, nearly overpowering shade of yellow, with an uncomplementary black text. The text choices on the cover serve as a big indicator of the quality of book design. amd from that the quality of the book can (almost certainly) follow. Compare the back covers of both books. The soft gold lets the forest text set INTO it on Bayonet Woods. On Armor and Flesh, the black text is setting ON the bright yellow, nearly looking like it will slide off of the lacqeur gloss of the cover. And this high gloss is another important note; using the bright yellow only enhances the shine of this finish, and as silly as it seems, interfered with my expereince by being more quick to become cold, creating a negative experience as a reader.

I brought up design last week concerning the in-class version of Ondaatje versus the original version I took out of the Carnegie Library. It was important to note how the narrative was experienced with or without the image of Billy on the cover. I also mentioned the unlikelyhood that Ondaatje had anything to do with the newer cover feat. the Billy image. And it is hard to say just how much input Bohince or Obadike put into the design of their books, but I feel that it is a very important element of how one's work is percieved. I hope that everyone understands this as we work on our manuscripts and in the future thinks about who is handling and what will happen to work that is published.

I agree in large part with many of the sentiments already shared about the work. Much has been made of the female experience/female voice these two poets use. As a male, my experience does differ from these experiences in some way. I viewed Bohince's book as less about a specifically female experience as much as about the father/daughter and generational experience (...how many poems have I read about a baby-boomer dealing with cleaning out a deceased parent's home?) As critical as that jab may be, Bayonet Woods is a good book, that finds its focus in narrative, consistent voice and careful language.

As for Armor and Flesh, the language seemed flat and unresponsive to the poet's whims, forcing Obadike to depend on what Lizzie reffered to as "blatant objective." To close with one last note that depends on my design-premise, it is valuable and reinforces the "blatant objective" when one considers the cover art of Obadike's book - a form entering a second skin, flesh entering into armor, a woman into a man... the same objective-fulfilling image pairs Obadike had to rely on throughout her project.