Bookseller's description: Limited edition, one of 101 copies, all on Somerset Book paper, each signed and numbered by the 12 students and Professor Kitty Maryatt. Page size: 5 x 6.5 inches; 120pp. Bound: loose as issued in octavo gatherings, five to a wrapper, three sets with wrappers printed with author / artist names, all housed in larger wrapper printed with title; housed in Tyvek mounted to Somerset Book paper to form slipcase with unusual accordion fold at spine opening. Published for the 65th Anniversary of the founding of the Scripps College Press, the project was based on a consideration of zaum poetry as developed by the Russian avant-garde artists such as the poet / publisher known as "Iliazd". Zaum poetry has been described as untranslatable and beyond signification. It has enhanced meaning, or meaning turned inside out. Students were particularly asked to pay attention to Iliazd' 1949 publication, POESIE DES MOTS INCONNUS, which included the art of 23 different artists to elucidate his anthology of phonetic and zaum poetry. The resulting book, KOTOBA NO PARTY (meaning word party in Japanese), is an homage to Iliazd and his book and the artists (Matisse, Picasso, Metzinger, et al). The students' original texts appear in eight languages with images that are linoleum cuts or pochoir prints. The text was printed letterpress by the authors. The Japanese is transcribed phonetically in Latin characters; the other languages are Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. This elegant publication is a worthy homage to Iliazd. While Professor Maryatt has asked her students to pay attention to the beginnings of the modern illustrated book, particularly Mallarme's UN COUP DE DES (1896), as well as all the work of Iliazd, which seems to be infused into this book, it is no copy. Rather it is a contemporary look at the art form.

Ref: GB/11304