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"Paper" by W.S. Merwin

Summer 2014
Summer 2014
:
Volume
29
, Number
1
Article starts on page
28
.

Karla Elling  is the proprietor of Mummy Mountain Press & Paper Mill in Paradise Valley, Arizona. She is a letterpress printer and papermaker, specializing in desert fibers like Hesperaloe funifera, an agave. For thirty years she has printed the work of contemporary poets and writers, including several United States Poets Laureate.  At the 1989 Taos Writers Conference on the Natural World I was asked by conference director and international poet Christopher Merrill to contribute a broadside of "Paper" to celebrate Merwin's keynote address and poetry reading. Printed letterpress on Japanese kozo—white ink on white paper, signature in black—this poem was meant to hang in a window, Merwin's words shining in the changing light. Of all the poems I have printed in thirty years, this one is a favorite. The broadside is reprinted here with W. S. Merwin's kind permission.

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"Paper" by W. S. Merwin karla elling facing page: "Paper" by W. S. Merwin, 1989, 26½ x 14½ inches, letterpress printing on Japanese kozo paper, edition of 23, published by Mummy Mountain Press. Photo: Johanna Dozer W. S. Merwin was the United States Poet Laureate in 2010–11. His poem "Paper" appears in The Rain in the Trees, a collection of his poems published in 1989 by Alfred A. Knopf.