Thursday 18 March 2010

If Covers Like This Don't Get More People Reading Poetry, Nothing Will

Designer unknown, but I like it!

UPDATE: Alice Smith identified it as the work of Jay Ryan--it's a 2008 print entitled 'Madison Exchange'.


Something Has to Happen Next, a book of poems by Andrew Michael Roberts, published by University of Iowa Press.

5 comments:

Patricia Lockwood said...

This is good. Poetry covers have had a problem for a while now--a lot of Serious Paintings going on, in varying shades of mud and frogskin and autumn leaves. That said, I think things have gotten better in the last five years or so: more color, better fonts, and better design, at least among the books of the younger generation.

Alice said...

The cover image must be Jay Ryan's - www.thebirdmachine.com

JRSM said...

THank you! I'll add that info to the post!

Pete said...

Ryan's a great artist - I have three of his prints but wasn't familiar with this cover. He also did the cover for Michael Chabon's The Final Solution.

Anonymous said...

I am somewhat, kind of, ok so completely biased (being the designer) but this

http://www.amazon.com/Fancy-Beasts-Alex-Lemon/dp/1571314431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269897780&sr=8-1

is a poetry cover that, uh, doesn't say "Serious Poetry cover".

Unless you think taxidermied Siamese squirrels say "Serious Poetry". Which, why not?

And from a design perspective, when was the last time you got to spec a Pantone fluorescent on a poetry cover (or any "literary" cover, for that matter)?

Enjoy.

-Christian Fuenfhausen