Collaborations is both about a collaboration between and artist and a poet and an example of a collaboration between a project and a library, in this case the Penn Library. For many years now, Enid Mark, has been translating the printed word into exquisitely designed and produced settings through her remarkable ELM Press. The present exhibit presents three recent works fromto ELM Press. To Persephone displays Enid’s virtuosity in working with several poets, while Precessional highlights her work with a close friend and established local poet, Eleanor Wilner. The third of our collaborations with Enid “unpacks” her latest collaboration, this time with Penn faculty and poet, Susan Stewart. Through a series of email exchanges, Collaborations traces the paths of two kindred and yet different creators took in realizing The Elements. It is a fascinating view of a process that is at once inscrutable and opaque, and yet marvelously clear and apparent.
