Defining design of an era

(click the Pegasus for the show)

In this week's cover story, Eric Ziegenhagen discusses the work of Cynthia Krupat and Harry Ford, two designers he says defined an era of book design:

At best, the designer’s choices match the publisher’s choices and the poet’s own voice: the volumes become a consistent experience. On one hand, book design, like book titles themselves, can be seen solely as decorative or promotional, but occasionally designers truly collaborate.

This excellent essay got us thinking about the back issues of Poetry magazine we have here at the office, and the issues from the '70s in particular. These issues featured a wide range of poets--A.R. Ammons, Margaret Atwood, Erica Jong, David Lehman, W.S. Merwin, Eleanor Ross Taylor, Jayanta Mahapatra, James Schuyler, and Denis Johnson, to name a few--and a similarly wide range of designs. So we put together this slide show of Poetry magazine covers from the '70s in all of their orange, afro-ed glory. Enjoy!