"Reading John Cage" by Octavio Paz and “White on Blanco” by John Cage, translated by Eliot Weinberger.  Bilingual, with woodcuts and monoprints by Ilse Schreiber-Noll. Large folio ( 15 x 22 inches), loose as issued, pictorial wrappers, housed in a sepia linen drop-back box.  Conceived, printed and bound by the artist in an edition of only 14 copies, signed by poet, artist and translator. Light wear, overall very fine. A rare example of this spectacular and sumptuous production.

In this book all participants join voices in a complex bilingual counterpoint of mutual admiration. Octavio Paz’s poem Reading John Cage (“Lectura de John Cage”) includes quotes from Cage’s books Silence and A Year from Monday, here printed both in Spanish and in brilliant English translation by Eliot Weinberger. This is responded to by Cage, himself, in verses titled White on Blanco, in which he takes some phrases from Paz’s emblematic open poem Blanco to write a mesostic poem in Spanish titled “White on Blanco for O.P.” in the form which permits reading down through the center of the verse as well as left to right. His poem was reproduced here from the original manuscript by photo offset. Eliot Weinberger completes the triad with his own mesostic on Paz and Cage.