The Making of Red Mare 30 by Su Zi

 

Red Mare 30

I am making another Red Mare: This one will be number 30.

I have made Red Mare through the years—first just June, now both of the Solstice.

Making is a meditation; there is a process, and each part of the process is a meditation.

First, there’s the rude saw of investment—the manuscript has a hue, and choosing paper was once a meditation in the tenderness of touch: what will hold the ink, what will embrace the text. 

Also, the secret petticoat of the flyleaf—over the years, it had been mulberry inclusion, Tibetan handmade with seashells, bamboo paper and this edition is a Japanese Onuro Lace.

And always are the hours of sewing, a one knot stitch for the binding that a teacher said once was from Japan, too, as are the sheets folded raw edge to the seam—this edition, the text too has texture.

But of all the aspects of Red Mare, the first meditation is the block.

To blockprint, the image must be reversed, letters and numbers are backwards, and the block must be carved to reveal itself.   There are technical tricks, but habit has me drawing directly onto the block—seeing the reversals under my pen. For this edition, and for the first time, i took notes.

They are incomplete, because this edition is still under construction. There are thirteen sections: a log of this project...

1

it’s seeing in reverse

the direction of flow

the shadows change—the light changes color in autumn

spectrum. Spectral

it is I

(hybrid2)

the walking bones

speaking with my hands

2

carving each negative away

the blade

this knife, the direction, how much will be seen

and always stopping         making water 

3

(20 hours after medical treatment, unsmiling cheshire)

to see what will be read in reverse

to just look

sometimes too ill to pick up the knife

(chime)

And there’s a sudden memory of Red Mare at book fairs—she was out, seen; an edition is a crop, a litter of poetry. She was seen in cities, in Tampa, in New Orleans. Each edition a micro collection of ready to read fingers to fiber.

4

the lines of the light

ever steady in motion

steady

the knife

against the light

(hybrid3)

a look

a cut

a line

ever in reverse

reverse reveal

5

stillness

hands shaking

6

the small islands

the current of the cut

the flow of the knife.

7

sharpen the knives

spill water on stone

eyes blur

hands shake

(hybrid4)

8

cut the line backwards

and still see the flow

9

the paper

can catch fight, an organza in the hue of first light

10

the plate rests

awaits testing

the paper waits

her eventual runway

i await with myself

in hunger

11

suddenly pink

print the plate

press azul oscuro

and shifting colors

ever because

(hybrid5)

12

as the prints dry

air and paper

touch the night

13

folding

what it is to

this touching.

Note Below: Next come the cotton

         Next comes the needle

           Planned release is always to honor the Solstice.

Red Mare Origin Story

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago.

                     

Check out her author page on Amazon.

Su Zi's Review of PLANT DREAMING DEEP by May Sarton

 

On reading May Sarton Plant Dreaming Deep

It might happen that to the hand comes a book: hardbound with cloth, dustjacket long gone. The tightly woven canvas of the book is green and has a texture; the book has feel. The inside cover is still tight and green and gracefully sun struck. Thumbing the text against the palm is a remembrance of high-quality paper, of books with deckled edges. Suddenly, there is also the remembrance of how one reads such books—with care for both the entity and the words within.

The volume has a 1968 copyright, and photographs. Prior to generic pixels, means of reproduction involved plates, and this book has a number of them: of the author across from the title page, across from each of the fifteen chapters. It is a testament to the prowess of the publisher then to have been able to release such a book; and there the crest of  WWNorton.

Of course, an AI overview of the work at hand is infuriatingly superficial, but not untrue—let consideration for such broad gloss not be here. Yes, the work is a memoir of buying a house in the middle of the twentieth century—readers will gasp at the minuscule monetary amounts mentioned. Nor ought to readers, getting a glimpse of the list of previous publications, be surprised that the author, May Sarton, is readable. What becomes striking about the work becomes its nuances—as if coming across the volume itself—once a ubiquitous version of a book, now a vintage treasure—were not clue of serendipity enough.

Sarton’s reason for buying a house begins with her commitment to her ancestry: “ I enjoy beginning this chronicle with an evocation of two ancestors because in this house all the threads i hold in my hands have at last been woven together into a whole” (19), but she purchases her particular house in a remote location because of a bird

[...]under a stand of old maples, and there, a little back from the road, behind its semicircular drive, withdrawn from the village itself, stood the house. [...]The whole impression was one of grace and light within a classical form, and i was so bedazzled by this presence that for a moment i could only see, not hear. But then I heard it—an oriole, high up in one of the maples, singing his song of songs” (28)

For any bird lovers, Sarton beguiles aplenty throughout the seasons; she maintains feeders in winter “And sooner or later I must push hard to open the front door against the drifts and get myself out with seed for the bird feeders” (86), and weaves these perceptions with ones about solitude and the life of a writer.

Sarton also gardens, because she: “considers flowers a necessity, quite as necessary as food. So from spring until late October i spend the hour just after breakfast in the garden, [...]for whenever I look for the rest of the day there is always somewhere a shaft of light on flowers, and I feel them strongly as part of the whole presence of the house” (57). 

 It might seem, to those who are quintessentially transient, to be so thoroughly stay at home, and to do so in solitude. Sarton does socialize—she has guests, and becomes participatory in her community, but she also travels to teach. There might be some who consider Sarton’s determined retreat to be quaint; others might find themselves already in the solitude of which Sarton speaks. Certainly, the perceptions here are worthy for many reasons, giving Sarton’s simultaneously simplistic and complex style her worthy iconic status.

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago.

                     

Check out her author page on Amazon.

Su Zi's Review of Father Tectonic by Robert Frede Kenter

When the Book Itself is Art

While the history of the artist book may have begun, as Wikipedia states, with illustrated manuscripts, and continued into our times with citations that include major art movements, discussions of art books contain two crucial elements: the object is a deliberate artistic creation, and the object is intended to function as a readable entity. Oftentimes, the experience of seeing an artist book might be in a restricted situation such as a museum, where the object itself is displayed but not touchable. Oftentimes, the lack of tactile interaction with the object lessens the experience of engaging with an artist book, as it is possible that the tactile experience is a significant part of experiencing the art. However, historical artifacts are fragile, and our experience of them must allow for respect and reverence to still the fingers’ lust to experience materials perhaps no longer available. Contemporary artist books are also rare, but still available, and any bibliophile with a personal library ought to include such entities in their collection.

Of the artist books available, one consistently delicious producer of artists books is Ethel, which reliably produces poetry chapbooks of extraordinary beauty. Typically, an edition of any book in their series will feature a cover involving physical collage that involves actual stitching, and editions tend to stay under one hundred copies. While it is true that many editions from the press are rightfully held in special collections, it is also possible to own a copy, to have one in hand, to touch the art.

In the case of a book called Father Tectonic, with text by Robert Frede Kenter, the book’s cover itself requires consideration: on a base of mylar, the work’s title and author have been printed, with the book’s cover image physically sewn to the mylar base...one can touch the delicacy of the threads rising above the smooth surface. The cover has additional stitching in varying colors of thread that form a grid column between the cover image and the spine, which is hand sewn—hand sewn in “toji”, a type of traditional Japanese binding where the stitching itself is a part of the aesthetic. Most stunning to this edition is a tiny pocket sewn on top of this collage, that contains a single yellow button. Thus, the book exists as a work of fiber art, as a kind of quilt, in that it is a sewn collage.

Artist books often contain text, and Kenter’s Father Tectonic is a full-length poetry work in and of itself.   The poems are muscular, with a maturity of voice that pleasures the ear. In “Milk River”, the poem opens with: “metal taste     methane/ his military   chest medallion” (16) and continues with irregularly lined stanzas that nonetheless have the fluidity of  speech. Kenter’s ear is impeccable here, with phrases such as “Ambling toward comatose” that are both macabre in semantics and lovely to the ear.

Experienced readers of poetry ought to take especial note of the poem “21 Investigations”, a long poem in sections that is the book’s physical centerpiece(pages21-30). The text here also employs irregular stanzas, numbered sections and the use of both italics and quotation marks, as well as open spacing with the text of the poem itself.  The sections vary in length, but each exists as a poem in itself, making the piece itself a quilt. The sort of quilt that Kenter is constructing contains some lovely fabric:

6

Mother when you came home from work

we went to the library

your black hair falling into your eyes

the light a certain quality of light

between maples and oaks the sidewalk

a vision through dusty glass windows. 

In the car your arthritic hand held the wheel

you read to me quietly as rain

falls between the cedars.  (24)

The emotional tone of love despite pain is a consistent element throughout this work. While the characters are recognizable as both specifics and symbols—a family—Kenter’s language mixes the violent or painful with language sensitivity. In this section above, each stanza functions on an assonant repetition: the o for “mother/home/work”, the  i for “library/eyes, light/ quality light/ sidewalk’ before the slant shift in “vision” to the sound of “arthritic hand”, the poem’s climax. Since this poem exists as an element in a poem series of twenty other sections, it is a poem within a poem, genre-bending in itself.

What we have thus at hand is an artistic consideration of no small weight, despite its  physical ability to fit into a simple mailing envelope. Given the temporal limitations on the availability of the object, it’s a wonder that art of such gravatas can be ordered and held at hand as prosaically as any kitchen subscription. That one can actually subscribe to the press and get such wonderful books for less than a pizza is a wonderment of our times.

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago.

                     

Check out her author page on Amazon.