Andrew Lambirth talks to Douglas Dunn and Norman Ackroyd about their latest collaboration
Illustrated books are one of the glories of a library. Looking over my own shelves I find assorted delights ranging from The Story of My Heart, the unorthodox vision of the naturalist Richard Jefferies fittingly partnered with woodcuts by Ethelbert White, to David Gascoyne’s poems decorated rather sombrely by Graham Sutherland, and ‘The Traveller’ by Walter de la Mare, accompanied by colourful landscapes by John Piper. The pairings of writer and artist are often intriguing: Wyndham Lewis and Naomi Mitchison, William Beckford and Marion Dorn, Samuel Johnson and Edward Bawden. One of my favourites is an anthology called The Poet’s Eye, selected by Geoffrey Grigson and illustrated superbly by John Craxton. A more modest project altogether is the charming set of pamphlets produced in two series by Faber & Faber in the 1920s and 1930s and then in the 1950s, called the Ariel Poems. These brought together a single poem and an artist in often magical conjunction. I’m thinking of Paul Nash and A.E. (George Russell), John Nash and Wilfrid Gibson, and C. Day Lewis and Edward Ardizzone. Unforgettable.
I long for a publisher to produce something as enterprising and inexpensive today (the second series were priced at two shillings and came with an envelope ready to send to a loved one), but some of the most interesting current word and image collaborations are appearing at the other end of the market, up among the pricey limited editions. The Royal Academy of Arts has just published an extremely handsome book, pairing its leading printmaker Norman Ackroyd with the poet Douglas Dunn. The result is called A Line in the Water, and is a splendid large landscape format hardback of 159 pages, featuring 75 etchings by Ackroyd and 15 poems by Dunn. It’s available in three different editions: the standard is priced at £60, a limited edition containing a separate signed Ackroyd etching is £250, and the deluxe edition containing the etching and an extra signed volume of poems is £400. These prices suggest an appeal to print and fine book collectors, not to the general public. This is not the sort of volume to tuck into your pocket when off for a country ramble. Not unless you’ve got very long pockets.
The initial idea for the book was Ackroyd’s. He had already collaborated with Dunn on a limited edition of unbound etchings and poems in a solander box under the title of The Pictish Coast in 1988, so the two had worked together fruitfully before. This new book is an extension of that interest, in the ancient, once-inhabited islands off the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland. ‘I didn’t want to do the normal monograph,’ explains Ackroyd. ‘I wanted to do a book looking forward, not back.’ He relishes Dunn’s self-deprecating wit, the ‘humour hanging about between the lines’, his ability to do the job with style. ‘We’re on a similar wavelength,’ he says.
Norman Ackroyd (born 1938) is a Yorkshireman, but he sees himself very much as ‘a resident of a group of islands on the edge of Asia really, as well as the edge of Europe. Fantastic things happen visually out on that edge.’ He is fascinated by the people who lived on these edges in the 9th and 10th centuries, the beleaguered communities of monks who inhabited islands with no pier or easy access, who built chapels and beautifully corbelled cells. ‘Who were these people?’ he asks. Monks who chose an island in the Atlantic instead of a hermitage in a wilderness or a column in a desert? Dunn tries to supply an answer in his poems.
Douglas Dunn (born 1942) is, according to Melvyn Bragg, ‘among the finest of our poets’. He is interested in the musical effects of formal verse, and despite a busy career as an academic (from which he lately retired), he has published a notable string of books since Terry Street, his first collection of poems, in 1969. He has collaborated on projects with other artists, but clearly enjoys working with Ackroyd, whom he refers to as ‘a force of nature’. Dunn also says of Ackroyd: ‘He responds to poetry perhaps more immediately than I respond to visual art.’ In fact, although Dunn’s intimacy with Ackroyd’s work informs his poems, he made a conscious effort to get back to first principles; as he confesses, ‘I was more responding to the places.’
Both artist and poet research their subjects through books, maps and archaeological magazines before making field trips. In fact, they only journeyed together once, to the Shetlands in early spring. Ackroyd stresses that he is not just interested in the scenery, but in its historic inhabitants. His principal subject is topographical, but, as he says, ‘the sense of place on the western shore is inextricably tied up with weather. The ocean dominates.’ Some of Ackroyd’s best images are not at all literal but approach the abstract in their veils of aquatint. They are also devoid of people; the human element is clearly his collaborator’s province. ‘I tried to introduce a population,’ comments Dunn.
Much of the appeal of the book is due to the expertise of the designer, Isambard Thomas. Ackroyd gave him 140 reproductions of his etchings and trusted him to make the best choice. (The etchings were made over the last three decades: the earliest in the book is dated 1987, and 44 were made since 2000.) As a direct consequence of this, Dunn’s poems are not illustrations to specific images so much as a response to the flavour of Ackroyd’s work. This suited Dunn. Otherwise, ‘a writer can end up doing captions, which is not very satisfactory’.
Poems can be commissioned but not easily written to order. After the idea for this book had been proposed, discussed, and some preliminary work achieved, Dunn fell under the cosh of writer’s block. This desperate state held up the book for a couple of years, and meant that the project has been some five years in the making. Dunn calls poetry
Hand-knitted truths and sense
That search for a melodic intellect
In the turbulent mind-mess.
He maintains that a good poem should work in the mind, the heart and the ear simultaneously. When poem meets image, the eye too must join the party. Ackroyd’s beautiful monochrome etchings (but with what a wealth of colour in their tones) marry successfully with Dunn’s thought-provoking and evocative poems to make a new and distinct entity.
A Line in the Water is available from the RA shop, Burlington House, and from www.royalacademy.org.uk
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