Randall Couch: PEAL

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Hardcover |23.5 x 17.0 cm | 144 pp

Coracle | 2017 

Edition of 300

Syntax is to word order as melody is to note order. Peal explores the analogy of melody and syntax by applying the methods of bell change ringing to rows of words: poetic lines. Each individual poem begins with a line of four to nine non-repeating words. That line is then permuted according to one of the methods, resulting in anywhere from 12 to 240 unique variations.

By convention, the word corresponding to the heaviest working bell is coloured blue (the “blue line”) and the word corresponding to the treble or highest-pitched bell is coloured red. The starting lines—all quotations—form the cento that opens the book, where their inflections evoke thematic relationships. Their permutations create distinctive visual patterns as well as frequent semantic surprises. The methods have been chosen with an eye to the associations created by juxtaposing their names with the corresponding starting lines. What emanates from Peal is timelessness. It is almost a medieval book, but one that could only be achieved in the digital age.

‘As an artistic book-object, Peal is well-nigh perfectly conceived. Just as you would expect from Coracle, it is beautifully designed, if a little austere. Ian Hamilton Finlay said towards the end of his life that ‘art is a small adjustment,’ and very many small adjustments went into what Coracle describes as ‘perhaps one of the most elaborate of [their] productions.’ Every single parameter and detail of this bright and clangorous book interrelates satisfyingly when examined, like snugly interlocking tesserae.’ David Briers, Art Monthly