Re-reading Jorie Graham: _Never_ (1)

ALERT TO THE wisdom of the old proverb, I do not judge books by their covers, but I certainly notice covers, and some of the physical details of Never seem to be sending signals.

For instance, this is the first Graham collection with the wide, approaching square pages (seven inches by nine-and-a-quarter inches) that she used for every subsequent collection (to date at least). My first guess was that the wider pages accommodate those famous long lines, giving the book as a physical object a certain Grahamian dimension. But beyond that, the format unleashes a variety of design possibilities for Fearn Cutler de Vicq de Cumptich. (I wondered whether this was a fanciful pseudonym and that Graham had designed the jacket herself, but no, Fearn Cutler de Vicq de Cumptich is a real designer.)

The jacket cover is simple but striking. Mostly white space, with "NEVER" at the top, quite large, "JORIE GRAHAM," not quite as large, towards the bottom, and "poems" and "from the pulitzer prize winner" tucked in between. At the center, three and a half inches by three and a half inches, is a detail from Vermeer's The Astronomer, the astronomer's right hand reaching out to touch the celestial globe on his table, the globe lit by the sunlight coming through that famous Vermeer window. The fingers of his left hand rest on the table, near a book or manuscript. 

Clean and appealing.

The surprise is on the jacket's back. Alongside the inevitable UPC code, we have another three-and-a-half inch square, positioned just where the detail of the Vermeer painting was on the front, with a black-and-white photo of Graham. In this one, unlike her earlier jacket photos, she is smiling. And she holds her left hand up, fingers extended, in a gesture that looks a lot like that of the astronomer's right hand, save that she is not touching anything. Her hand is just suspended in the air.

The design seems to be suggesting that the viewer see Graham as somehow in relation to Vermeer's astronomer. Hmm.

Another superficial but interesting detail: this is the first Graham collection since Materialism to have a dedicatee: "This book is for Emily." There are quite a few Emilys out there, but my guess would be Graham's daughter, Emily Galvin (also the dedicatee of The End of Beauty).