Every year going back quite a few now, it has been essential to my friends and I to remember the PLAY in art, and to let go of the ego and the eye and make poems together. This project was inspired by
The 3:15 Experiment published by The Owl Press in 2001 which collected together writing by Bernadette Mayer, Danika Dinsmore, Lee Anne Brown and Jen Hofer. When my friends--Lisa Pasold, Barbara Beck, Michelle Noteboom and I--read that book, we decided to add a twist to the idea of knowing we were all writing at the same time: we wrote at the same time (our first time at midnight) for 10 days, but then we gave these writings to each other (we call these our "pre-writes"). From these pages of prewrites, we make--what we call "orchestrate"--poems. Most often, we have each supplied 4 poems of some sort to the collections which we then have self designed into chapbooks and then thrown public parties from friends who gather, share food and drink, and listen to a little reading linked to the time of the original writing--that first being, Midnight! I still remember the candelabra at Lisa Pasold's house and our lovely friends who came out to share with us the pretty first object we had made together.
Now we have moved well around the clock. And this year it was the turn of the 8. Most of us wrote 8, or oddly 7 or 9 (poets can't count, or refuse to, rather!) We have been ordering and laying out our chapbook and Friday night we will be at Lisa's place putting the final touches into this year's cover. We have, in the past, stencilled, sewn, patched, staple-bound, wrapped and strung in a variety of ways our A5 sized "DoItYourself" editions; This year, we have added a twist and the binding will come from a new direction. Should be fun. Hope you can join us. We do host our events at a private house, and ask anyone who attends to treat this like a neighborhood potluck--bring some food to share, or / and drinks. In recent years we have also associated a cocktail creation with our reading events. To save us from over imbibing, we did NOT choose to make a cocktail containing 8 ingredients! The base this spring will be whiskey and the rest is for you to sample this delectable concoction sur place Saturday.
Cost of our chaps? We sell them at cost. All the labor and the time are our gift to you--and each other!
And, because the 8s allowed me to go look at a LOT of great octopus images, here is another invite image for you:
Photos thanks to FabFunky: get that blue and white octopus print at
https://www.fabfunky.com/products/octopus-8-blue-nautical-print-coastal-art?variant=48004608524608 The second image is on
Pintrest
