by Rūta Kuzmickas

No Reply Press is excited to announce Per Se Phone, an illustrated collection of poems by Rūta Kuzmickas. This first edition features eleven poems and five pen-and-ink illustrations which lend themselves beautifully to letterpress. Rūta’s poetry is electric. It eschews clunky and clichéd phrasing for a lyrical sensibility, without ever resting into simple or tired rhyme structures. While thoroughly original, there are flashes (and collectors of No Reply will recognize this to be a supreme compliment) of T. S. Eliot. One such moment:

this is a place where I cannot be reached.

this is a place where evening descends

like sheets of tracing paper, details

buried underneath, blurred

by frosted sleep.

The poetry is intricately woven, and without fat. Language reduced to its core elements. They are the literary analogue to the pen-and-ink illustrations which accompany them. These are explained by Kuzmickas:

“As a self-taught visual artist, the simmering point in terms of developing a visual language came when I first gave up on the idea of drawing something “accurately”, allowing my hand to flow in a more natural, unpredictable rhythm. I had fallen in love with the topography of Rodin sculpture, and so I made ink recreations as a challenge to myself: can I make a topographical map of a sculpture with black ink? A photograph? I then took to drawing as though I were sculpting wire or thread, tangling everything together but seeking clarity amid the knots. This led me to making faces out of single pieces of wire in order to feel what the pen was feeling, as many of my drawings tend to be layered masses of bent, unbroken lines. I obsessively draw faces and figures, and have only recently begun to incorporate watercolor, and bright red circular hearts.”

ARTIST NOTES

Rūta Kuzmickas is a visual artist, pianist, poet, photographer, and interdisciplinary collaborator. Although she has played the piano since age six and has earned two degrees in piano performance from Rice University, her heart lies in crossovers of images, words, movement, and music. She frequently collaborates with composers, musicians, and artists. Her first book of poetry, Flash Flood Fiction, was published in 2020. Rūta lives in Portland, Oregon.

EDITION NOTES

• The edition is limited to 326 copies and is offered in two states.

Standard

• Limited to 300 copies, numbered 1 through 300.

• Printed by hand on Crane Lettra paper, using a Vandercook Universal I cylinder press at Letterpress PDX in Portland, Oregon.

• Bound by hand in handmade paste papers wrappers.

• Signed by the author, publisher, and printed.

DE LUXE

• Limited to 26 copies, lettered A through Z.

• Printed by hand on Crane Lettra paper, using a Vandercook Universal I cylinder press at Letterpress PDX in Portland, Oregon.

• Bound by hand in a Bradel binding with a gold-tooled cloth spine and handmade paste paper boards.

• Housed in a handmade solander case.

• Accompanied by a watercolored letterpress print, which is signed and numbered.

• Signed by the author, publisher, and printed.