mind to paper

One of those poems of the mind that evaporates on paper.

things carried along

Model for a poem: The wind along the street catches up leaves, bits of paper and other debris.

poem at large

Leaving a page of poetry at the bus stop or on a park bench is not littering.

mark making

Stone, paper, pixels, air, mind…poems will try to fix upon anything

neutral surface

Paper as support, its own materiality is usually ignored. So the sense of a neutral surface that can accommodate any mark seems an ideal way of communicating freedom. At the same time printed material has the capacity to repeat itself endlessly and linked to distribution or manifestos—even freedom however idiosyncratic and inscrutable. And this tension is what surfaces and transforms the amnesia of the paper into a tension between the drawn and the printed. The mark and the letter.

—Ellen Gallagher, interview by Jessica Morgan (Institute of Contemporary Art in association with D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2001)

sound scape

Longhand: The sound of words being scratched out (in both senses) on paper.

pulper

One of those literary degenerates still hooked on the paper book.

paper profit

Poetry is paper profit, there for the taking anytime.

fragile lines

As though written on tissue paper the poem felt as if it could come apart at any moment.

letterpress to the rescue

There is nothing like seeing a display of fine letterpress books and broadsheets, the simple & elegant designs, the almost palpable fonts, the textures and muted colors of the beautiful papers, to restore one’s faith in poetry in its purest sense. Even slight discolorations at the edges of pages, or the fading of some of the text, reminds you of what it was that first drew you to the art of poetry.

the folds

He handed me his poem and I read it, but what could I say other than that the folds in the paper were the most beautiful and elegant elements of the page. The best lines, so to speak.