FOUR BUTTONS TWO HOLES FOUR BROOMS by JEAN ARP

This is another Poems-For-All  booklet from the generous gift of curator Richard Hansen! This mini-book features a poem, “Four buttons two holes four brooms” by Jean Arp.

You open the 1 ¾” x 2” book to read some background, i.e. that the book is “a collaboration with artist Marc Snyder. He suggested using the poetry of Dada artist and writer Jean Arp and provided the superlative impression of Arp you see on the cover. “

Marc also runs the co-publisher of this mini-book, Fiji Island Mermaid Press.  Anyway, you’d turn the page to see the text of the poem

Four buttons two holes four brooms

By Jean Arp

in the hollow-cheeked hollow of a

  pause

roll     fireproof gilded baits

down unchallenged staircases of

  eloquence

the catafalcons and catasparrows

  lie down

in their sneeze coffins

the tables follow the chairs like

     males after

females

     and what hovers over the tables and

     chairs in

the shape of a farewell-cloud

   declares in verse the situation to be

     hopeless

Here’s an image of both the front and back covers—strikingly designed!

And where shall we “shelve” this book?  Well, because the cover has an orange-ish background, I thought of an orange chair—the orange Eames chair!

Naturally, the surrealist tome doesn’t just allow itself to lie flat.  It must be slant, hang over the chair!