Tim Inkster on design in James Reaney’s work

Tim Inkster in Stratford, Ontario, October 19, 2014. Photo by Laura Cudworth, courtesy Stratford Beacon Herald.

Thank you all for coming to the Fifth Annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture in Stratford to hear publisher Tim Inkster’s talk on “The Iconography of James Reaney: A Collector’s Manual.”

Inkster praised the excellence of the typography and graphic design in many of James Reaney’s published works, particularly Paul Arthur’s design for The Red Heart (1949) and Allan Fleming’s design for A Suit of Nettles (1958). Tim is also impressed by James Reaney’s work hand typesetting the early issues of his magazine Alphabet (1960-1971).

Alphabet Number One, September 1960. Cover design by Allan Fleming (1929-1977)

A full version of Tim Inkster’s lecture will appear in an upcoming issue of The Devil’s Artisan, a journal of the printing arts.

Cover for James Reaney’s Twelve Letters To A Small Town, first published in 1962 by Ryerson Press.
Pages 6 and 7 from Twelve Letters To A Small Town (1962). Drawings by James Reaney.

Our thanks also to Charles Mountford of Poetry Stratford and Robyn Godfrey of the Stratford Public Library for their help in organizing this event. Future speakers for the James Reaney Annual Memorial Lecture include Thomas Gerry and John Beckwith.

For more about the lecture, see JBNBlog and Laura Cudworth‘s article in the October 20, 2014 e-edition of the Stratford Beacon Herald (page A1).

James Reaney printing at the Alphabet Press print shop at 430 Talbot Street in London, Ontario (mid-1960s). Credit: London Free Press/Sun Media Corporation.

James Reaney Memorial Lecture October 19 in Stratford

Join us on Sunday, October 19 at 2:30 pm at The Atrium (behind Café Ten) in Stratford, Ontario, for a talk about graphic design in James Reaney’s work by publisher Tim Inkster.

Tim Inkster is particularly intrigued by the excellence of the design in James Reaney’s first book, The Red Heart (1949), one of the nine titles in McClelland & Stewart’s Indian File series (1948-1958) and designed by Paul Arthur (1924-2001).

Cover and title page from James Reaney’s The Red Heart (1949). The Red Heart was the third title in McClelland & Stewart’s Indian File poetry series.

Café Ten is located at

 10 Downie Street,

 Stratford, Ontario

 N5A 7K4

Tel: (519) 508-2233

 

The annual lecture is a project developed by The Stratford Public Library and Poetry Stratford, and features a talk by a person who is knowledgeable about the life and work of Stratford poet and playwright James Reaney and of writing in the Southwestern Ontario region, which is such a strong element in Reaney’s writing.