The Tide’s Story is the result of a collaborative effort between Marshall Weber, Eliana Perez, and Xu Bing, illustrating Weber’s eponymous poem in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. The multi-lingual calligraphy flows wavelike through a seascape horizon, interrupting the conventional act of reading and translation, thus renewing the practices of reading and writing as overt parts of the aesthetic experience.

The illustrations and calligraphy serve to integrate the book’s subject matter with its form and function. The metaphorical components of the illustrations – salty blood, ink, and seawater – suggest the quite literally fluid exchange occuring both between the two people described in the poem as well as the subject and form of the book. The wave and wind forms replicated in the book’s actual design engage the reader both physically and intellectually in the production of waves themselves – the primary form of physical transmission of light, sound, heat, and liquid – aligning them with the figures in the poem as well as the creators of the book, enhancing the idea of only the most “fluid” boundaries existing between humans, words, images, and nature.

Book concept, original English poem, and calligraphy by Marshall Weber.
Illustrations, Spanish translation, and calligraphy by Eliana Perez.
Mandarin Chinese translation by Xu Bing, Jesse Coffino-Greenburg, and Zhai Yong-ming.
Mandarin Chinese illustrations and calligraphy by Xu Bing.
Bound with silk-covered boards by Christopher Wilde.
Unique book. Pen and ink calligraphy and drawings on handmade paper. Silk-covered board binding. 60 pages. 9×6.” 2006.

The Tide’s Story

please

hold me with both of your hands

tightly
so we both feel the exchange
of blood and ink

let us stare at each other
relentlessly in endless
yet silent
conversation

this is the life we share

contracted
by the death of beings
gentler than ourselves

quiet and swaying
they bequeathed infinite
universes
with paths as numerous and varied
as their roots
as profound
as the dark earthen depths
to which those tendrils
plunged

life’s anchor
securing the laden vessel
holding sails to the sky
and pages to the sun
floating in the sea of words

each water drop a letter
each wave a word
                        a sentence
                                    a paragraph
all telling
the tide’s story

sentenced
to madness
lunatic imaginings

our legions
of scrawled tinder sticks
kindling igniting
firestorms
in our brains

lightning fields stricken
with tangled consciousness

please

hold me tightly
with both of your hands
turn me
again and again

please