Aspect Shifts: On Tom Raworth’s "The Big Green Day"

Abstract

This essay discusses The Big Green Day, Tom Raworth’s second book of poems, published in 1968 by Trigram Press. It focuses mainly on what can and cannot be said about the relation between Raworth’s poetry and the visual art by Jim Dine that the book also includes. The drawings are not designed to illustrate any of Raworth’s texts but the essay aims to show that an analysis of analogous traits in the drawings and poems can shed light on the decision to include the drawings, on the aesthetic practices of poet and visual artist, and on the declared success of their collaboration.