This week, for my poetry class, I edited a poem I workshopped the week before and presented a banner I made from the poem.

Thinking about the sculptural piece really clarified ideas I had about the poem - what I wanted to come through from the next. The main editing I did was adding space (tried as much as I could to mimic those spacing choices here - its tough in the email format). The before/after difference rly impressed upon me how important using the page as a medium and directing with spaciality is.

I think I tend to think less about the visual impact of the poem separate from the line it creates on the banner.

After workshopping the poem the first time, I really started thinking about the heart of the poem is about the new We, and the W in the word we (the word we is mostly the letter W) as two separate Us. UU. UUe. Two individual strands connected who can stretch in different directions, who form and reform their relationship with one another into new shapes

And actually, after reading some Aram Saroyan this week too, maybe that is a poem in itself:

U U UUe

But anyways - that’s what I was thinking about while making this banner, and it helped breath some more space back into the poem on the page.

a soaring hookmy heart opens to you

well,not everywhereit’s too sad to

the only place I unhulleddanced

do not rule outwisdom of the body / and forget

the experience looking inside

something is delighted by this

energy an infectious steadfastenergy you can return to me

come back tosugar andthe salt

in spring & summer

WITHIN

you daydreamingheartened by the difference in the word ‘we’

the presence I finally havewhat it takes tobe in the world to conjure

joy, tooto be consolable

what is the devotionwe foldedcoalescing into

big cloud subconscious future

to be going to the same placealbeit

less finished

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