Saetas/Songs of the Arrows is a unique artist book, which includes six poems by Federico García Lorca, and ten original drawings by Manuel Neri. The poems — Arqueros, Noche, Sevilla, Procesión, Balcón, and Madrugada — are from Poema de la Saeta/Poem of the Saeta, which was included in Lorca’s book Poema del cante jondo, published in May 1931 by Ulises, Madrid. The English translations of Arqueros, entitled The Archers; Noche, entitled Night; Sevilla, entitled Seville; and Balcón, entitled Balcony, are by Robert Nasatir. The English translations of Procesión, entitled Procession, and Madrugada, entitled Before Dawn, are by Cola Franzen.
The drawings by Manuel Neri, in water-based pigments and graphite, are figure studies from the Lucia Series done in 1983, and were selected by Manuel Neri to accompany the poems for this book. The Introduction was written in English by Mary Julia Klimenko and translated into Spanish by Jaime Moreno Villarreal. The calligraphy of the text and page designs were created and executed by Thomas Ingmire on Rives BFK White paper in the Winter of 2008. The calligraphy for the Introduction, biographies, and colophon was done by Akiho Sugiyama.
The binding structure and leather binding for the book were designed by Daniel E. Kelm and produced by Daniel E. Kelm, Kylin Lee and other mechanics at the Wide Awake Garage in Easthampton, Massachusetts. The book is bound in goatskin leather, with a cover design that combines hand-tooling and die-stamping in gold leaf. The book is housed in a handmade paper-covered box produced by Foolscap Press in Santa Cruz, California. The uniquely painted designs, calligraphy, and collage elements on the cover of the box are by Thomas Ingmire.
