Typesetting Loss

“In late 2022, early 2023, when I realised that my marriage was ending, I automatically began to re-enact versions of J and I going house-hunting, but this time I pretended that he was the one driving me around, doing his best to get me to the next appointment, and that it was I, not him, who was looking for PELACO’s mid to late afternoon footprint—for its shadow on a building across from it, on the opposite side of the street.” Typesetting Loss is a long poem by Joseph Jude—a meditation on shapes and patterns, as they relate to the movement of people in and out of one’s life. Jude’s personal record of longing centers on a mid-twentieth century factory sign, visible from the apartment in which the story is set. The sign prompts a reflection on Jakob Erbar’s famous geometric type design, which, in a moment of profound uncertainty, offers the narrator a sense of order and stability. Loose-leaf, unbound pages, the form of the book-object meets the feeling of unmooring and displacement that come with loss. Jude’s poem is accompanied by drawings by Susanne Schwieter, and designed by Ayman Hassan.