Mona Fertig

This is Paradise

"Everyone wants Paradise, but few know how to live there. Mona Fertig's new chapbook is a truth-telling chant that cries out with clarity and compassion for the disappearing beauty of her island home. As with the best of poems, 'This Is Paradise' holds nothing back; it loves hard enough to take the island's curves on two wheels."

– Peter Levitt

"Mona Fertig's new poem 'This is Paradise' is a cold plunge into the shadow-side of island living. Mona writes with gorgeous specificity about her beloved Salt Spring, using startling and hard-hitting images to reveal how much difficulty and compromise come when people stake a claim to 'paradise'. But still, as Mona writes, 'Beauty walks the beach barefoot with herons, cradles Hope.'" – Shirley Graham

Colophon: Limited edition book-art chapbook. Cover: 7 1/4" x 5 3/4" with 3 rectangular gradated windows handcut into the cover and first two pages. Two tipped-in photos of former Mt. Belcher woods and trails (before being logged and cleared, spring 2005). Photos by Mona Fertig. Cover: Arjo Wiggins Curious Metallics Ionised 92.5 lb, Elemental Chlorine-free and Acid-free, recyclable, made with naturally occurring pigments. Endpapers: Neenah, Environmental, 100% recyclable, 50% sugar cane fibre; Green Tea smooth, 80 lb text; plus Domtar Opaque Grey 70 lb text. Inside text paper: Classic Columns 60% recycled fiber, 30% Post-consumer Waste, Acid-free, Pistachio, 80 lb text. Title and press name, in Baskerville, embossed, inked and letterpressed. Author's name blind-embossed in Baskerville on a C&P platen press by Peter Haase. Book design and construction by Mona Fertig. Chapbook handsewn with cotton embroidery thread from Paris, France. Poem set in QuarkXPress, Baskerville and printed by xerography. 20 pages. Comes in bi-oriented polypropylene acid-free bag. Signed and numbered by the author.

Publisher: (m)Öthêr Tøñgué Presš

Edition: Limited edition of 125.

ISBN: 1-896949-38-X

Year: July, 2005

Price: $40 CND plus $2.00 shipping