Books were pretty, once. The insides were nice, sure, and the pages may have had an agreeable solidity, but it was the cover in particular that mattered somehow- if it wasn’t attractive, then the likelihood you’d read the book fell to zero. How old were you? Five? Ten? We were all at this stage, a stage where a book’s outer aesthetics trumped content. No matter how good the book actually was, if it wasn’t delivered in a comely package, it sat unread. The cover did more than bear the title; it bore the responsibility of having the reader actually read the book.

We grew up, though. We began to read books that were unattractive, even ugly; I can’t recall the exact point when this happened, but I imagine it was in grade school, when those decades-old multi-bound novels were given to us to read. And, being a bookish child, I loved them despite their hideous outergarments and realized that what was inside the book counted for far more than what was printed on the cover.

Something changed, though, when I began to write myself. I wrote poems for years, until I had enough to put together into a tiny manuscript. I submitted to a press that did all of its work in-house, from printing to binding. In book parlance, the publisher’s description of The Beaten-Down Elegies is better poetry than I can write:

Letterpressed on Zerkall Ingres, a German mould-made paper, and wrapped in Khadi Handmade Cotton Rag in 'terracotta' over an inner cover of handmade St. Armand Canal Paper in 'autumn leaves cream'. This 44-page book is bound in a long stitch variation using Irish flax thread.

Magnificent, isn’t it? It was published in 2004. All of which is to say that though I thought a book’s cover rather unimportant, that a book’s contents were paramount, I still chose a press that would do a very good job. A story, though. During the discussions about what would appear on the cover, my publisher suggested that there be a scene of a barnhouse, over top of which would be clouds in the shapes of giant cows. Now the backdrop of my book –the content- concerned rural life, and the picture of the barnhouse, with its raggedy fences, was perfect. But cloud-cows? In a book about domestic violence? I said no. And in saying no, in refusing that little detail, I was saying again that covers are indeed important.

I then became, after several intermediary steps, the editor of that little press. Our ethos is producing beautiful books, and you can imagine my gratification when a reviewer said of the production values of one of our books,

Well, on the level of form-i.e., with regard to the book as a material object-the interest was manifestly in creating a tome showcasing the bookmaker's art. Unlike its conventional perfectly-bound cousins from Canada's small presses (Gaspereau Press being a notable exception), this letterpressed and hand-bound book is very much made rather than produced. To appreciate this book you need to hold it your hands, feel its mass, savour its odd but pleasing combination of looseness and structural integrity. Moreover, if you're any sort of aficionado of bibliopegy, you'll want to know that it was made on a Vandercook 15-21 press, set in Minion 11-point type, that its endpapers are French Marble reproductions, that the copper-coloured fabric over its hardboard covers is Japanese silk bookcloth and that its binding is Coptic variation.

Somehow, it mattered that they noticed. Again, covers--and their parent, design--have a place.

Another story: I published a nonfiction book, Call Me Doctor, in 2006 with Pottersfield Press. I am very happy with how the publisher, Lesley Choyce, and his editor, Dr. Julia Swan, handled the contents of the book. Their suggestions and encouragement were very helpful. But, once again, things got sticky on the matter of the cover. I was told by Lesley that the AV department had “worked overtime” to create a “real snazzy” cover that would be emailed as an attachment to my computer. I received this news at work and anticipated going home so that I could feast my eyes on the cover’s snazziness. What I did see, when I got there, was decidedly unsnazzy: it looked like it belonged on a pulp novel. It is hard to do justice to its ugliness, but I shall try to describe it: to begin with, the lettering of the title looked as if it were painted on the book. There was a giant orange skeleton on a strange turquoise background. There was a stethoscope apparently listening to a formalin-dripping brain. Just in case you didn’t get the idea –skeleton, brains, stethoscope- a hypodermic syringe was poised to inject a book. To make matters worse, the images were superimposed on one another, making them look garish, as if this were a ghost story. It is as if somebody in the ‘design department,’ in five minutes flat, thought up all the clichés they could muster about medicine and pasted them into one image. Finally, the coup de grace was that my last name was misspelled.

Needless, to say, I wrote back, objecting to the cover as proposed. I tried not to sound too obnoxious, but I also was very serious: if there weren’t changes, I was fully ready to pull the book. I asked a friend with design experience to help out. The friend sent me an image, which I then sent to Lesley, and that image became the cover of the book. A cover I much prefer, for instead of making one sick, this cover –of a man in scrubs standing against a hospital wall- makes one think of a doctor in reflection. There is just the slight hint that the doctor pictured is getting away with something, which is what much of the book is about. So, if covers didn’t matter, as I fully believed, I wouldn’t have cared and watched as my book revolted any potential reader. I began to lose my pious attitude.

But, in defence of piousness. I read a lot of poetry books, about forty a year. A select few are beautifully produced; most are mediocre; a few look terrible, rivaling even my earlier example. But in reading them, I never judge the poetry inside by the cover. Never have I thought, “This poetry is enhanced by a good cover.” Never have I thought, “This poetry is deflated by a bad cover.” I pick up the books in bookstores, I often flip them open without looking at the cover. If the poetry inside is any good, I buy the book. No thought is paid to the packaging. So when it comes to other people’s books, I profess purity: covers don’t matter. The reason is really simple: the contents are independent of the cover. It’s so random: a good design can have bad poetry, and vice versa.

All of which brings me to a recent discussion I had with a Canadian poet. He believes that covers do matter, and when asked a question about his favourite books of 2006, he digressed to what he thought were the best covers of 2006. I thought his response irrelevant –for the stated reasons- and he wrote back to assert that, on his shelves, he ‘always’ had room for beautifully designed books. I told him that my shelves only stock good and useful books- the rest go to ground.

So we disagreed. That might have been the end of it. But then he made the shocking –to me- admission that he hadn’t read that much poetry this year (remember, this is a Canadian poet) in his capacity as proprietor of a Canadian website dedicated to reviewing Canadian books. So he avoided answering the question about which books were the best of 2006 because he was ignorant and instead felt qualified only to deal in their covers. This harkens back to the early developmental stage- most of us get past the this-book-pretty stage and move on to greater inquisitions, like that of content.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised- not many people read poetry nowadays, but one might reasonably expect more from such a highly-placed person. Perhaps this is a symptom of something greater in our culture: a preference to regress, to stay in the books-as-artefacts stage, the Heather-Reisman stage, and not linger with the books-as-tools, as respositories-for-ideas, not for something you line your cabinet with but something you line your mind with. Books lose their dangerousness when viewed as merely “pretty.” Covers have a place- on the outsides of books. They are book-wrapping, not the event itself. It’s the substance of the book that’s substantial. Should we even mention covers in a review, when they are so unreliable in predicting the value of their contents?

Well, if it’s my book you’re reviewing…