Darragh Park (continued)

Cherry blossoms filled the air, swept by the May wind, and a friend said, "Oh, I thought it was snowing." That, Darragh Park said, was the effect he tried to get across in his paintings. He wanted to convey the pink cascade before it gained definition as blossoms or snowflakes --  and to convey the friend's face at the same time.

Darragh, who died Friday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said he had "a vision of vision." As a motorcyclist he learned on entering a curve that he had to focus "beyond my immediate destination if I was to operate the machine smoothly and stay alive." He had to be able to divide his sight between two points and let "the rest of [his] vision" take in everything between them. The beauty of his paintings is a beauty achieved by the supremacy of vision. How cruel that of all ailments, he had to suffer the progressive deterioration of his eyesight.

Darragh did the cover of "An Alternative to Speech," my first book of poems: a wraparound black-and-white cityscape in the rain: the traffic, human and vehicular, on the corner of 25th Street and Ninth Avenue. Darragh was devoted to James Schuyler and did the covers for Schuyler's "Collected Poems" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and for "The Diary of James Schuyler" ed. by Nathan Kernan (Black Sparrow): both are portraits of the poet. Darragh must have done covers for other books, and I would be grateful for details from anyone who has them.

-- DL

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Your posts have been a lovely tribute to Darragh Park, and remind us of the close link between poetry and the visual arts.

[Jenny Factor]

D.L. thank you for this. In fact, I've always been struck by the loveliness of the Schuyler covers, and of your first book's--which I have on my shelf. I would love to see more of the Darragh Park covers, if authors do in fact send you more of them. I admire so much the way this certain group of folks let their work talk with one another, and I value your own place in that conversation. I'm so sorry.

[Truck Darling]

David, Truck here. I posted some more stuff of Darragh's on my Facebook profile if you are interested in checking them out. I apologize I could not find a larger photo of his cover art for your first book.
warmly,
Truck

[Rosanne Wasserman]

Darragh also did the covers for Marc Cohen's two books with the Groundwater Press--a drawing for "On Maplewood Time," the Intuflo chapbook, for which, incidentally, Jimmy Schuyler wrote the intro (http://webpage.pace.edu/erichie/groundwater/u3.html); and a full-color cover for "Mecox Road" (http://webpage.pace.edu/erichie/groundwater/p3.html).

[Nathan Kernan]

In addition to the books already mentioned, Darragh also did the covers for the following books of James Schuyler: THE HOME BOOK, Z Press, 1977; A FEW DAYS, Random House, 1985; SELECTED POEMS, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1988; TWO JOURNALS, his collaboration with Schuyler, Tibor de Nagy Editions, 1995; SELECTED ART WRITINGS, Edited by Simon Pettet, Black Sparrow Press, 1998; JUST THE THING: SELECTED LETTERS OF JAMES SCHUYLER, Edited by William Corbett, Turtle Point Press, 2004; and the two New York Review Books re-issues of the novels, ALFRED AND GUINEVERE, Introduction by John Ashbery, 2001; and WHAT'S FOR DINNER, Afterword by James McCourt, 2006.

Other books?

[DL]

Thank you, Rosanne and Nathan. Darragh made exceptionally fine cover art, didn't he?

[Miles Ladin]

I was a friend of Darragh's and had visited him several times in Bridgehampton. I learned about his passing this week and am greatly saddened. His paintings and work on paper is so wonderful and important that it gets out in the world in the near future.
Please email me with news of a memorial service.

thanks.
Miles Ladin

[Mark Statman]

When I think about Darragh, beyond his paintings, his motorcycle, his off and on love affair with the Mets, I think of a graciousness, a sense of the pleasures of the smart and simple things of the world. Too many memories of too many pleasant conversations. And the casual "give a girl a jingle" if he knew you were going to be around.

Thanks, David, for this space.

Mark Statman

[Sara]

I'd be happy to send in the covers Darragh did for our two Schuyler reprints. I just heard the news, and find myself much more saddened than I might have expected. He was a sweet, funny, and charming man.

[DL]

Sara, I'd love it if you could send me the covers for "Alfred and Guinevere" and what was the other, "A Nest of Ninnies"? Thanks for the offer.

[Sara]

Sorry! I didn't check back to see if there'd been a response. You've done a great job highlighting Darragh's covers and work, by the way.

I've uploaded the two covers to the nyrb classics flickr page here http://bit.ly/V5Lok.

Best