Drawing Lessons
Paul Jaskunas  (poems)
Warren Linn (artwork)
intro by Marcus Civin

ISBN ​978-1-963908-41-1        74 pages         $45.00

Where we want to recognize it, history is at every door. But what do we make of it? What do we do? Don’t tell me we are at a dead end. Maybe we’re at an end, hearing a song fading out before a related but unexpected song begins. In retrospect, maybe a reckoning of some kind was inevitable all along. Eventually, when and if we must push forward without the resources we’ve relied on in the past, in that darkness, perhaps we’ll all need imaginations trained on drawing lessons like the ones here.
   —Marcus Civin, from the introduction

Linn’s drawings are resplendent with fluid moments of pareidolia and perceptual switching. Faces form from bundles of shapes, interiors become exteriors, limbs and hands morph into less definable circumstances, all while the eye keeps guessing and dancing across each sketchbook page. Paired with Jaskunas’ engrossing poems, each drawing becomes even more mysterious, generating new possibilities for interpretation and raising questions about the relationships between figures, spaces, and narrative. A truly engaging experiment in word and image!
   —Deb Sokolow, artist and author of Environments for Controlling People: Best Practices

Paul Jaskunas is the author of two works of fiction—The Atlas of Remedies (Stillhouse Press) and Hidden (Free Press), which won the Friends of American Writers Award—and of Mother Ship, a poetry chapbook (Finishing Line). His writing has appeared in Tab, The Pierian, America, the Comstock Review, and the New York Times, among other outlets. Since 2008, he has taught literature and writing at MICA, where he edits the journal Full Bleed. 

Warren Linn, Maryland Institute College of Art Professor Emeritus, is a visual artist whose work has garnered numerous awards, as well as gallery and museum credits. He has exhibited nationally and internationally since the mid 1960s, and for fifty years his editorial illustrations appeared in major print-media outlets throughout North America.