“Inscription is a form of intervention…” ~ Gitelman

I borrowed the tea (in my case coffee) ring idea from the poet Susan Tichy, whose tea poems (visual poems with tea rings) chronicled her morning tea drinking. The ephemera of it. I compose this as much as I write it. A part of a morning ritual of reflection… a reflection that begins where they day’s writing and reading begins, but that which takes me through a bit of lost family material. There’s nothing special about this paper or its preciousness. This image is more the blog post than these ramblings. Not sure what I did here, just that it all feels rather incomplete.

A visual poetry aside:

When we were instructed to compose on some precious surface, I thought of a few of my visual poetry projects, so I thought I’d share a couple images.

The first is a visual poetic project inspired by Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta gardens. Although while his inscriptions are on stone, mine were crafted on sheets of natural fiber paper that, over time, disintegrated from exposure to the elements. I only documented the work as initially installed, as I moved from that location soon after its “completion.” All I know is that it is no longer there.

I also include here a visual project for an ecopoetics course on another delicate “precious” fibrous paper, whose disintegration I did witness and document.

Also, this is just to say… capture creates a kind of ethical dilemma for me with these projects.

~ Moriah