Josef BeeryBook Design
Cooking with the Muse
“Poetry and recipes that are worth their salt both reflect natural cycles and long human traditions, ‘filling us,’ as the poet Peter Pereira puts it, ‘with what endures.’ Both, in a sense, preserve the ephemeral—the vivid observation, the fleeting emotion, the chance discovery in the kitchen, the many tastes to which we hanker to return.” […]
Water Paper Stone
“I love the rhythm of these long days. I am completely immersed in the sound and feel of water everywhere. On the bridge, the sound of the river, rushing over the rocks below, rises like an audible mirage against the roar of the three waterfalls in the background.” Artist Judy OShea contacted me about […]
Intimate
“A sudden curve in the forest, and a wall of black rock rises before them. When he blinks he is startled to find what seems to be a ring of smoking cones; beside them, dark shapes of tethered horses, swaying; fires. His mother nudges him, tells him they are home. Upshaw blinks, the small lights […]
Embryos & Idiots
“He knew she was hiding a bee. He could hear it zapping inside her, trapped in the amber nook that led to her mineral uterus” A small book of poetry by Tupelo Press. I was struck by this stanza of the opening poem as I began thinking about an image for the book’s cover. […]
Stage Harbor Yacht Club
“‘There are no rocking chairs in our Yacht Club and I hope there’ll never be any.’ Fritz Hovey had an idea—let’s start a yacht club in Stage Harbor. The year was 1932, and the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. The club envisioned by Fritz Hovey was not the formal variety seen […]
A Country to Serve
“In presenting such a measure I cannot but regret that I shall be deprived of the support of many members of this body with whom I have lately stood side by side in upholding and defending the principles on which it rests. . . . In taking this course, I know full well, Mr. President, […]
Listening to Color
“More than a hundred graves lie in this flat, sandy ground—remains of African Americans who lived between 1840 and the present. Brambles and brush obscure many graves. Some markers carry inscriptions that are no longer legible while others bear the names of families still living nearby.” Historian Anne McKeithen set herself a personal challenge: record […]
