Vojtech Kubasta & ABC3D

Sarah Denslow's talk yesterday about historic pop-up structures might not seem to have much to do with our class's primary focus. However, the creators of these toy and moveable books shared the same desire to go beyond the "default" position of the static page as the writers and artists that we'll be studying this semester.

As it happens, this morning's New York Times has a long review essay about a 20th century Czech master of pop-ups: Vojtech Kubasta. The Grolier Club in New York (47 E 60th) is exhibiting a collection of Kubasta's books through March 15. Read about Kubasta: Wizard Who Made Art Jump Off the Page.

Check out this short video, a "paging-through" of one of the more popular pop-up books of the 21st century: ABC3D.

Next week in class we'll be making our one-word poems pop off their pages.