Poetry issues #26, the last poetry issue featuring many works, was published in five parts between March and December 2022. It's a body of work that largely attempts to take poetry issues to the next level: The pieces are steadily leaving the 2D world, more dimensions (eg. audio and video) are being incorporated into the work, and the visual elements mingle more than ever with the text. And since this is just the beginning, I have decided to stop working in bundles of poems and let each piece grow on its own, and be published as a separate unit.
Part I: Our Lost Babies (poem), Mirrors (artwork)
A "lost baby" is anything we dreamt of and didn't flourish, everything we strived for but lost in the end. Creation and loss are main themes in this piece, but closely connected to letting go and moving on.
Mirrors is a larger assemblage piece (95x60), the first one in a series of worlds. Every box is its own small world but they are all connected and constitute a single piece, like a mind with its several thoughts and ideas.
For more detail:
Part II: Distance, a handmade book (and a song)
My own handmade paper, colored and illustrated with a mixed media technique, integrating collage elements, handwritten text and lots of color, that I always love.
Distance
The howling of the wind
triumphant in the space between us.
I just want to sleep
imagine the death of the wind
silence under the yellow sun
children's laughter roaring
a happy dog's bark.
That's how you tolerate loneliness
how sadness becomes sweet.
In a dream you held my hand
and led me through a dancing crowd.
In that dream you were my man.
An impression of the physical book:
Also, here's a link to the digital flipbook or, if you prefer, to the .pdf.
Part III: A Fight (video with sound)
A closer blending of text and image. In the video, the text is spoken and the image is moving. Everything changes a little in benefit of the whole.
A Fight
You were afraid that winter would come
and it was true: the days were getting shorter.
You longed for that last day on the beach
but the weather had already changed.
The end, most of the time, doesn’t come with a bang
but as an echo of thoughtless words or as an aftertaste
of dry, bitter grass.
It’s crazy how the weather changes
faster than my mood.
Anyway, I believe we’ll make it
through the winter.
We both haven’t been really good
at being weighed down by reality.
“Lightness” has the word “light” in it. Light is spring.
The last day on the beach I was alone.
I found in my bag a kernel of corn
that you had given me. It was stale
but I ate it ceremonially. It was late
it was cloudy and I was cold.
I set our messages of fire. We’ve had enough
sun for a summer. Now it was time to step back inside.
Part IV: Appropriation
I appropriated this piece in the same way man appropriates nature, in the same way that I am appropriated, boxed, controlled, tamed: the victim becomes the perpetrator.
So, I made sure
the animals
would graze
behind a wire
fence.
Part V: tinder date
More on the playful than the profound side, using the same superficiality that it comments upon, "tinder date" is the result of careful observation of the online dating world. I view my character with empathy, but of course my viewpoint is almost never a flattering one.
My tinder date
I shaved my balls
I rode my horse
I did my best
She never came
Now who will save me?
You can read more about the poetry issues project here.
