Read Then, if You Will

Poem by John Daniel
Two-Color Woodcut by Susan Lowdermilk

Read then, if you will,
and in the springtime of your reading
the pages will shine with pale fire,
like new alder leaves in the sun . . .

John Daniel is a poet and essayist, author of five books, including the well-received Looking After: A Son's Memoir and The Trail Home. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, two Oregon Book Awards for Literary Nonfiction, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Two books are forthcoming: One Writer's Natural History (Fall 2002) and a book about his experiment in solitude in the Rogue River Wilderness (2003). John Daniel has taught creative writing at Stanford University and Ohio State University, among other schools; he lives in the forest west of Noti, Oregon.

John Daniel wrote this poem as his way of contributing to the renovation and expansion of his community's library. He was asked to write a poem that would appeal to children and adults and involve books and reading and the natural world. The poem, reflecting the seasons of nature and of life, exists as an illustrated frieze on the walls of the Fern Ridge Library.

Susan Lowdermilk is a printmaker, book artist, and graphic designer. An MFA graduate of the University of Oregon, she teaches design and computer graphics at Lane Community College. For this broadside, Lowdermilk chose to make a woodcut of the Willamette blackberry vine, a species native to Oregon.

Specifications

• Edition of 100 press-numbered copies
• Signed by the author and the artist
• 10.5 x 19 inches
• Printed on Somerset Book paper
• Designed and printed by Sandy Tilcock
• Publication Date: April 2001

Price $55.00

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