writer – artist – teacher
Editor Olchar Lindsann has included 4 visual-textual pieces of mine in the latest periodical publication from monOcle-Lash Anti-Press. Synapse#5: Flashes of Language in Revolt is available now; 90 pages of varied and exciting work from 38 different contributors in a perfect-bound US-letter format.
You can order via the link on the monOcle-Lash website.
For this year’s seasonal message, to cover Winter Solstice, Christmas, Yule, New Year and all other midwinter festivals, I made a composite image using old Irish Christmas stamps, a stepped paragraph to echo a postal address, and a ‘sticker’ referencing the Par Avion label. The initial letters of the greeting ‘as Gaeilge’ were used to generate the message text. This constraint was afterwards used to generate a further 8 poems, which were shared via Instagram.
As my response to the hyperlocal commission from Arts&CultureExeter I made a set of 9 square visual poems, using the first 9 square numbers, and found images in square format as the initial constraints. These are hosted on the Arts and Culture website, and will also be uploaded my social media.
Words were drawn from texts I encountered over the weeks of ‘lockdown’, and the images selected from my stack of collage materials. These were edited by erasure, translation, and recombination. The texts respond to their sources, but transpose associations to novel social and political behaviour. The impulse to respond creatively finds itself faced with arguments in favour of action, and a counter rationale for inaction. The poems emerged despite this. Contexts include the work of Louis Zukofsky, Hannah Weiner, OuLiPo, and Bernadette Mayer.