Extinction Aria: Its Exegesis, the Realms, How Ink is Blood. A Poem by Anne Waldman

Hopewell, NJ: Pied Oxen Press, 2017. First edition, deluxe issue, of this 501 line poem, hand-printed in Frederick Goudy's 18 point Monotype Garamont 248 on Stonehenge paper in an edition of 65 copies, signed by the poet and printer, this being one of 20 copies (plus five printer's proofs) in the deluxe issue (as described above). Only 16 copies of the deluxe issue are for sale. The poem was written in response to "the cycle - within the Wheel of Life - of the six realms in Buddhist philosophy: hell realm, hungry ghost or preta realm, animal, human, warring god, and blissed-out god realm." In conjunction with the publication, Waldman and the Chilean poet, artist, and filmmaker, Cecilia Vicuña, together with Waldman's son, the musician and composer Ambrose Bye, recorded a performance based on Extinction Aria. Each copy of the publication will include a download card allowing access to the digital recording. As new, at publication price. Folio, illustrated, the frontispiece and tailpiece representing two different versions of the Kalachakra monogram, original hand-made patinated copper-clad Baltic birch plywood boards, inset with figures cold-cast in bronze, the text pages wrapped in Indian homespun and handloom wild Mulberry or Bhagalpur silk fabric and Nepalese silk yarn in the manner of a Tibetan sutra, in a cotton buckram book cloth-covered clamshell-style box. As new, at publication price.