This book: I made into a work of art.

A few weeks ago I blogged about the intimacy in the experience of defaming a book.  I explored the idea of using them, not just for reading, but for practical purposes, or as mementos.  All of this reflection stemmed from my recent preoccupation with book art.  A few months ago I saw a fantastic art show at 2nd April Art Gallerie with pieces made of books, and signed up for the class to learn how to make book art. 
Tuesday night my roommate and I ventured out (feeling a little proud of ourselves I might add) to the Arts District.  I’m not sure what we were expecting, but as it turns out, book art doesn’t need to be extremely difficult. 

The artist, Pam, showed us some simple techniques.  I chose to take the pages and fashion them into loops, then tuck them into the spine.  I cut the edges from some sections in order to have alternating lengths of pages, and varying heights of loops.

My roommate chose to fold the corners of the pages in a variety of different ways to create triangles.  Her piece is still unfinished.  The more pages you do, the tighter, and sturdier the piece gets.

There were seven women in the class, each with different styles.  One was a librarian, another a mom, and another an elementary art teacher.  One woman made a book that was a sampling of about half a dozen different techniques that the artist showed us.  Another chose to alternate between folding, and also cutting to achieve a wave-like effect. 

As we sat, schemed, cut, folded, and chatted. I find it ironic that over the experience of defaming some books we all started telling our stories to each other.  Overall, the class was a therapeutic experience.  I left feeling refreshed, and with a newly decorated book that will undoubtedly serve as a conversation piece for a long time to come.

Collaboration

This past week, I and two friends that are aspiring poets decided to begin a collaborative poetry project inspired by John Gallaher, and G.C. Waldrep’s work together on Your Father on the Train of Ghosts.  We decided, rather than writing whole poems back and forth to each other, that we would focus on creating whole pieces together.  We would use Google documents to share the project.  Each person would have full rights to edit, and the freedom to add, change, or delete whatever they felt necessary. This, we thought, would be most advantageous to us, because each of us have different poetic strengths and weaknesses.  With our thoughts combined, we guessed, our writing would be much stronger

Since this is only week one, we haven’t made much progress.  However, we are encountering a few, as the cliché goes, bumps in the road. The first poem, we determined, would be about imagination.  We failed to specify, however, which aspect of imagination we wanted to capture, or any kind of idea about imagination in particular that we wanted to express. Now, each of the three of us have been adding, cutting, and rearranging pieces of this poem, with no clear idea as to what we’re going with it. Schedule discrepancies have made it difficult to meet together and discuss this issue.  Meanwhile, a messy pile of words sit in cyberspace, taunting us with their not, as of yet, being a poem.

I’ve also been working on the staff of Sightlines, Malone University’s online art journal.  It works to organize events for student artists, such as open Mic nights and writing workshops.  The staff also puts together a publication each semester, made up of student submissions. My involvement thus far has been limited because I’m still trying to figure out how the system works.  I’ve been able to help advertise for Open Mic Night, participate in a writing workshop, and help gather submissions for our next issue.  Usually, though, my job is mostly to sit in our weekly meetings and feel a little bit useless.

Sightlines is a great project, but it is facing a few obstacles at the moment.  As of right now, the staff is comprised of about ten English majors. This can cause several problems -the first being that we have a limited perspective with which to run our organization.  Though we have some writers that are also musically or artistically minded, we lack the presence of other artists who can truly speak for other artists of their kind. This causes networking problems, which seems to be limiting our audience, and the kinds of art we receive for possible publication.

Also, too many of the same type of people in a group can often cause a regrettable kind of tension.  A professor of mine often says: “You wouldn’t be an English major if you weren’t fragile.”  Working together with other writers, I’m realizing even more as we have begun reviewing submissions, can be a bit of a challenge.  Often, those with a writer’s sensibilities tend to have very analytical tendencies, which give cause for very distinct idea, and strong opinions.  My other project, thus far, has been the same way (just today we had an argument over the effectiveness of Jorie Graham’s use of blanks in her work).  Yet, in both situations, there is an incentive to keep pushing forward. 

I remember talking to a professor about my frustrations, recently.  She went on to tell me, in her own frazzled and personal way that my experience is a lot like being an English professor trying to work with other English professors.  I realized that my experience is not entirely unique. 

People of our kind have the ability to drive each other absolutely insane. However, the intelligence and creativity that each of them hold is invaluable.  Working with others, whether it be on a future best-selling novel or using side walk chalk to advertise for an itty bitty college publication, is not only purely necessary, but offers variety of thought within a particular kind of perspective.  Even though I’m working with other writers, I’m working with writers very different from myself.  If we hold on to that (and have a little patience) we have a lot to offer each other.

Understanding and Ownership

About a month ago I picked up a book in the clearance aisle of a Christian bookstore that intrigued me, called The First Drop of Rain. The book is a sort of essayistic commentary on T.S. Elliot’s The Wasteland.  It’s formatted almost like a devotional with a series of short sections followed by some questions meant to provoke thought or discussion.

 In the first section the author brings up an interesting thought that has been on my mind ever since I cracked the first page.  She writes, “A professor once told me that nothing can belong to us, even our own experience, unless we understand it. I watch my life with my eyes.  I touch it with my fingers.  My mind considers and my heart longs. Across the landscape of my interior, truth coalesces and I begin to understand.  As I write my stories, I begin to understand.”  Then she asks, is it true?  Can something belong to us if we don’t understand it? 

This came to mind today during a writing seminar I attended.  Poet John Gallaher visited Malone University to talk to some students about “The New Spirituality in Contemporary Poetry.” He discussed the tendency of modern poetry to deal with more spiritual themes, even if they aren’t entirely overt.  

He also addressed the issue of poetry in which the meaning is difficult to grasp.  Specifically, we mentioned the anthology American Hybrid, which I have been leafing through somewhat disinterestedly for a poetry class.  I find myself reading passages like the following, and wondering “What on Earth could this writer have meant?”

[Insatiability by Cal Bedient]

For every angel
                                a preposition.
You call,
                swarm guitar string longitudes,
o air flame shining relations
                                                wandering contemporary.

Steeple white clapboard “to”
                spikes enormity Iowa blue-
as the moon is a clasp for night.

“Of,””with” –moments like rain,
when what rises from the river is not only river.

Lightning never lay me bare to bed

                She sat atop him as if he were everything,
                but not to her-

tablespoon of sugar in water.

Spaces be cream
                or exaggerated like raspberries,
red hustlers.

                                Roots that tug to be “up,”
                                “inside,”
                                                will never find a bride

We’re oyster spit, yet the sea
opens before us the white swan of the wounded.

I have had no understanding of these poems, no interest in them, and therefore no ownership of them.  I felt justified in this sentiment until Gallaher explained that poetry ought not to be about the intended meaning, but about the meaning that the reader derives for himself. He put it like this: “You don’t buy a car for the person that made it to drive it.”  It’s all about what it means to you.  Often in modern poetry there is a sort of vagueness to the words.  Gallaher suggested that this space between ideas allows us to fill in our own ideas and emotions, and ultimately to assign our own meaning. 

In this case, the quest for understanding is what inhibits ownership.  If I allow myself to stop demanding exactness from the work, and of myself, my experience is much different.  In rereading the previously confusing poem above, the mystery in the words begins to draw me in.  Allowing the poem to lead you can evoke emotions and rich images that are more satisfying than any concrete truth.