Parallel Editions ~ Alabama
(University of Alabama)

Noche
By Billy Collins
Tuscaloosa / Havana: Parallel Editions, 2007. Edition of 62.

5.875 x 8.375"; 9 loose leaves. Typographic design by Steve Miller. Bookbinding design by Anna Embree. Handmade paper for the text, letterpress printing, and bookbinding by Elizabeth Aversa, Sarah Bryant, Anna Embree, Sarah Marshall, Patrick Masterson, Steve Miller, and Laura Thomson. Handmade portfolio paper created at Papel Artesanal in Havana under the direction of Rafael Suan Lazo and Directora Izel Marino Gonzalez, technico y doctora del TEPA respectivamente. Lithographs printed by the Alabama team and the Cuban artists in Havana, Cuba. Bound in gray cloth with paper lithographic illustration on front board. Signed by the poet.

Another in the collaboration of works by the Book Arts program at the University of Alabama and Cuban artists and printers. This book features a poem by Billy Collins presented in English and Spanish (translation into Spanish by Maria Vargas) accompanied by lithographs by five Cuban artists - Hugo Azcuy Castillo, Luis Lara Calaña, Julio César Peña Peralta, Rafael Pérez, and Rubén Rodriguez.

This is the first publication of "Noche."
$375

Illegal Use of the Soul/Uso Ilegal del Alma
By Luis Fransisco Diaz Sanchez
Alabama / Cuba: Parallel Editions, 2006. Edition of 55.

4 x 5"; 24 pages with four linocuts. Signed by the artist. Printed letterpress.

Six poems by Luis Francisco Diaz Sanchez in a 2006 bilingual limited edition translated by Maria Vargas. Six linocuts by Cuban artist Julio Cesar Pena Peralta. Bi-lingual: English from one side, Spanish from the other. The poems were letterpress printed on Biblio by Steve Miller and students at the University of Alabama. The linocuts were printed by Miller and the UA students, working with the artist at Taller Experimental de Grafica in Havana, Cuba, on papers made for this book at Papel Artesanal. Anna Embree designed the binding and led a team of UA students and Cuban paper artists in binding the edition at Papel Artesanal.
$150

Design / Diseño
By Billy Collins
Alabama / Cuba: 2005. Edition of 75.

8.5 x 5.5" This is one of the twenty deluxe versions in a cloth clamshell box holding two versions of the book.

A collaborative book project between the University of Alabama Book Arts Program and Cuban printmaker Carlos "Tato" Ayress Moreno. A bilingual edition of poems by Billy Collins. The poems were originally published by Random House in "Sailing Alone Around the Room."

This book had its roots in a visit to Cuba in January 2003 by Steve Miller, a book artist from The University of Alabama. On that visit that he met, among a number of book and paper artists, the printmaker Carlos "Tato" Ayress Moreno. Miller and Moreno agreed that a collaborative book project would be an exciting thing to do. When Miller came back to the US, he contacted US poet laureate (2001-2003) Billy Collins, who was instantly supportive of publishing a bilingual version of some of his poems, to be illustrated by Tato. The book would be in two bilingual version - a fairly simple Cuban edition and a more elaborate Alabama edition.

During the year that ensued, Maria Vargas translated the poems, selected by UA book arts students and faculty, into Spanish, while Tato worked on linocuts in Havana. Plans were made for UA book arts faulty and graduate students to travel to Cuba in February of 2004 and work with the artist in his studio to finish printing and then binding the Cuban Book.

The Cuban edition was printed in the way that Alabama had seen books being printed at Editiones Vigia in Matanzas, Cuba - on very good paper and printed on a good copy machine, in this case at Kinko's.

Tato, with invaluable assistance from the Cuban artist-translator friend Arturo Ruiz Contreras, proved to be a great host for the Alabama team. he set up a large room with his old Chilean etching press and set to work on a new linocut for the cover. In the meantime the right number of handmade paper sheets were found to bind the 125 books at Papel Artesenal, a hand papermill in Old Havana.

The team spent almost three days in Tato's studio, printing and binding to finish the books, often to the sound of guitar playing and singing. On the Friday they were able to take eighty finished copies to the office of the Directora of the University of Havana Libraries, who had agreed to distribute the book far and wide among public libraries. That evening Tato invited friends and family and all celebrated with rum and food and song and dance.

During the Spring of 2005, under the direction of Steve Miller and Anna Embree, the letterpress printing and bookbinding of the Alabama version, which includes more of the artist's linocuts, were finished.
Deluxe edition $600 (Deluxe edition Out of Print)
Standard edition $375

Parallel Editions Out of Print Title:
• Havana: A Living City