Printing completed

I had a restless night; my brain too active. Just before 9 pm the co-ordinator and go-between for the off-shore printers sent me photos from a cell phone of pages from a finished copy of PfP for me to okay their despatch by shipping. The advance copies were supposed to have arrived. Which they did, this morning, as I was sitting down to a free-range golden-yolked egg. Perhaps an appropriate way, after all, to mark the occasion. The printers have done a superb job.

I am signing off. Faciēbat (third-person singular imperfect active indicative in Latin of faciō: to make, complete) was how a printer and dear friend, Ronnie Holloway (1909–2003), used to autograph many of the small books he produced at his Griffin Press in Panmure, Auckland. And I think he got the idea from another printer; imperfection having a long tradition.

When Wallace Stevens claims that ‘The imperfect is our paradise’, he continues with a touch of rebellion: ‘Note that, in this bitterness, delight, Since the imperfect is so hot in us, Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.’ The Poems of Our Climate, 1942.

I think of the ‘imperfect’ as a sort of dark angel; one that I wrestle with but who also provides energy and focus. The discomfort of imperfection is a vibrant companion, the guide by my side who drives me onward through dissatisfaction, incompleteness, insufficiency and often frustration to finally resignation and surrender. Each time; each project.

Though just what were we trying to accomplish? To do honour to…. Yes, that’s the phrase that comes grandly to mind. The sheer worth of it all: poems, photographs; the whole grand feast.

Faciēbat,

Judith Haswell 2017