For Camden - Walt Whitman’s poem, with an update and Ilse Schreiber-Noll’s inimitable artistry

$3,500.00

Camden! “ … a city invincible” - Whitman. Poet Dennis Brutus renders an update!

(Ilse Schreiber-Noll) For Camden. A book by Ilse Schreiber-Noll. Woodcuts and Silk Screens. Poems by Dennis Brutus and Walt Whitman. New York. 2007-2008. n.p. 18.5” x 13.25”. Loose in thick wrappers illustrated with green woodcuts. Conceived, printed and bound by Ilse Schreiber-Noll. Some pages with gauze overlays containing images and allowing the viewer to glimpse the words or images below. Laid in a card box with brown title on the lift-off lid. No. 4 in an edition of 7 copies signed by Ilse Schreiber-Noll and Dennis Brutus. Fine.

The Introduction states: “Camden, N.J. - It does not take much time when visiting this city to have doubts about a line its most famous resident, 19th century poet Walt Whitman, wrote about it: “I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible.” In the decades after Whitman’s death in 1892, Camden, located just east of Philadelphia, became a center of industry, home to RCA and Campbell Soup. [In] the years following, the city declined into one of the poorest cities in our country, a place best-known for government corruption and crime.”

The excerpts of the poem ‘Letter to Camden Burial Place of Walt Whitman’ were handwritten by the poet, Dennis Brutus, in January 2008, for this book. The artist cut the entire poem out of linoleum.

Schreiber Noll writes: “I would like to thank Dennis Brutus for giving permission to use his poem for this project.”

She also writes: “”Several years ago Dennis Brutus [sent me the poem "Letter to Camden". I had put it aside, but had always planned to do a book with it.
“I felt it was necessary at this time to make this book ,which brings attention to the problems of our cities. Camden next to Detroit, Oakland, Cleveland and others is considered one of the top ten most dangerous cities in the United States. ...

“The images in ... "For Camden"... show the grief and needs of these troubled together with the voice[s] of two great poets, Dennis Brutus and Walt Whitman.”