TREES
by John Lee ClarkSelected, designed, and typeset by Seon Kim
Trees
Trees
Copyright © by Seon Kim
artd 444 Typographic Systems
Molly C. Briggs, Instructor
Spring 2024
School of Art & Design
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
John Lee Clark is an American deafblind poet, essayist, historian, and translator and an activist in the Protactile movement. His acclaimed How to Communicate: Poems, 2023, incorporates creative reflections on the Braille slate, prose poems, and “erasures” that reinterpret nineteenth-century poems and critique the limits of the canon.
Trees is an original re-setting of Clark’s poem “ Trees”.
This project was inspired by the pedagogical research of book designer and doctoral student Natalie F. Smith, with whom Professor Briggs has co-taught typography in past semesters.
Contents
6 Foreword
9 Trees
Foreword
With eloquence and insight, Clark invites us to attune our senses to the language of trees, a language that speaks not in words but in the rustle of leaves, the sway of branches, and the silent growth of roots. Drawing upon his own experiences and a deep well of knowledge, he unveils the secrets of tree communication, revealing a world of interconnectedness and symbiosis that mirrors our own.
Trees
I love trees that stay away from me. But when a leafy finger pokes my eye, I squint.
I’m willing to dismiss it as an irony. A limb that knocks my head because I didn’t duck?
That turns my heart into a chainsaw.
This book was designed by Seon Kim, Set in to type by Seon Kim at University of Illinois, Urbana, Champaign, and Printed by Seon Kim.
Typeface used: Cheapines, Futura PT book and Medium