BOOKMAKING
One-Page Books
Bookmaking is part of a decade-long daily practice that I began preparing for an AWP (writers conference) panel on poetry and community. My contribution was to illustrate literary citizenship by “publishing” a poem by each of my fellow panelists: Ross Gay, Oliver de la Paz, Camille Dungy (via Skype), and Curtis Bauer. This hand-made, eight-panel style chapbook is made from one piece of 8.5 x 11” paper, photocopied, and folded together.
What ensued was a daily practice of making a booklet or two (sometimes more) a day for nearly a decade. These have taken on several forms: collage/assemblage, workbooks for poems-in-progress, and a kind of documentary of life, and the things in it… in book form. The finished shape is 2¾ x 4¼.
I learned how to make this from artist and graphic designer, John Kramer, my friend and collaborator on countless art and book projects. His instructions were hand-drawn on a single piece of paper shown at the top of this page.
My Practice
This brief video, made by John Kramer, is a look back at the books I sent him by post (he lives near Boston), starting in 2011. They are early drafts of poems, ideas, and other ephemera, copied, taped, and sometimes sewn together. Some poems were later published, some abandoned. These books are not meant to be polished or refined, but entirely about thinking and making, about process.
