Rychard's
Café Poems &
Linoleum Nudes
Selected & with
an introduction by
Bouvard Pécuchet
D PRESS 2003 SEBASTOPOL
CAFÉ POEMS & LINOLEUM NUDES
The Café Poems are poems that Rychard wrote on the street or in the cafés along Telegraph Avenue. He would inscribe them on someone's arm or leg with four color markers, held between his fingers, creating a rainbow of letters. Sometimes he would write on paper and sell a poem for a few pennies, which he would put toward another cup of espresso.
The poems printed in the large type format were the original books printed at D Press and are now out of print. Rychard writes in his history of D Press,
Let Me Show You, I began being D Pressd in an attic apartment in 1967 after finding a old Kelsey handpress and several fonts of worn type and hauling the lot away for $50. Days I worked in the backshop of the Ketchikan Daily News doing layout, burning plates, and assisting run a 3-unit Goss webpress. At night, I set type and hung my prints to dry on lines nailed to the angle of the attic roof. Grant Risdon showed me how to cut linolium blocks, which enabled me to disguise some of the irregularities in my printing and add a dash of color to compliment all the big, bold words now showing through. Given a 4X6 inch type case, how much poem can be printed with 60 point Bodoni Bold!?
The y in Rychard's name has raised questions. He says it is an Old French spelling of his name. It is to be noted that his sister, Lynda, spells her name with a y, and at the time of the name change, his father had been appointed a “Y-man” in the reformation of State Farm Insurance, where he was an executive, the “y” meaning there were three branches of leadership. It might, also, have symbolized a fork in the life path Rychard was following, moving away from the study of medicine towards becoming a student of the world.
—B.P.
being
knowing
rapture
me
myself
& I
yes means
no
no means
maybe
in every molecu-le
in every second
big &
small
sent
i men
tall
y yours
truly,
I am trapped
in my thought
half cloud
half wave
half sand
half moon
if I don't
suffocate
I'll drown
a risk
a miracle
a hope
magic of
a glance
becomes
a gaze
does love hurt?
—yes, it hurts
enough or
too much?
enough
& more than
enough
even we
even so
the candle burns
the candle burns
all
over
all
over
all
Place
another
word
for God
here
there
where
on
at
in
no now
there
no now
here
nowhere
