"A Note on the Type"

This book was hand-set in "Loggerheads," or "Cap de foix," a type developed by an anonymous Catalan printer around the turn of the century. Characterized by dissonance and angularity, with a slight hint of jocularity, it was much prized by Anarchist Buddhists in the early 1960s. The apparent lack of aesthetic principles in the design of the separate letters was once thought to be a sign of derangement, but now lends it a rare cachet. Banned until recently by the European Union, due to its reputed role in provoking mental breakdowns in otherwise normal readers, it retains an aura of slightly anxious brilliance perfectly suited to these poems.