Ronald Johnson
RADI OS OI – OIV
1977
5.5 x 9 inches
Unpaginated. Association copy.
Inscribed to longtime lover and publisher Jonathan Williams.
Excision poetry created from the first four books of Paradise Lost.
Collection Heather + Raphael Rubinstein
http://www.trifectapress.com/johnson/johnson.html
Ronald Johnson (1935-1998)
“I have spent the last twenty years writing a long poem titled ARK, which was completed in 1991. The work consists of three books, each of thirty-three sections: titled The Foundations, The Spires, and The Ramparts. Rather than being based on literary sources (as the early The Book of the Green Man was based on English seasonal poems) ARK was inspired by … architectures such as The Facteur Cheval’s Palais Ideal in Hautrives, France, and Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles…. Having completed ARK, I am currently working on the completion of rewriting Milton’s Paradise Lost by excision. The first four books of this were published as RADI OS in 1977. It uses an 1892 edition in which I omit most of the text to create a Blakeian visual page and a new Orphic text of my own.”
– Ronald Johnson