Going Down Singing

The scroll unrolling
without end, the sound
of everything unfolding,
uncomposting and unspelling,
disassembling, surrendering
its knowing to unknowing
and floundering and learning
how to swim again
and going on its way

"Going Down Singing" reflects a deeply collaborative project and friendship between Canadian poet Robert Bringhurst and California artist Joseph Goldyne. Goldyne’s initial studies of waterfalls (seen here in monotype renderings of powerful, dream-like imagery) came first and were made in a variety of media. Then the project coalesced: the poem was written in nine parts, and the final etchings were created in response to one another.

The elements of this book work together to evoke the rushing flow language and movement, past and present: the vertical motion is rhythmically present in the cascading words, stunning studies of waterfalls, the long, languidity of Zapf’s numbers printed before each poem part, and the slender vertical format of the book. Though Goldyne’s aquatints and Bringhurst’s words never come face-to-face on the page—the ghosting of the stark images and letterpress evoke a haunting relationship that invites the reader to dive into the book.