below are excerpts from Megan Arnold's blog on the creation of the ALL WAYS KNOW- chapbook, a collaboration between three members of the NBLA Co-Op. judi will follow up next friday with her thoughts on our collaborative project. see katie's perspective, here.
click on the individual titles above the dates to read the full blog posts:
may 19, 2015
"just in case
or… as the case may be, that is. three of us. setting poems at the case. and an e-mail from judi
possibility (how’s that for a subject to see nestled in one’s inbox!)
came wafting over me this morning… about a colloboration… of a chapbook of poems composed at the case…
...
and after the conversation it feels like we’ve made some decisions but then of course there’s always so many details which haven’t been sorted yet but that’s the adventure of it, right? The Decision, the Important One – theonlyonethatmatters? has been made. That we’re doing this. Whatever itthis is. Yes!"
june 5, 2015
"so the thing about setting, well one of them anyway, makes you very aware of each letter, each word. do I really mean this? is this worth pulling out the letters for? although with the time limit sometimes some things sneak in even if they are not quite Right which then we’ll have to decide about edits and so then for me it also becomes about the space as an element what’s not there as part of the composition and how it looks which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with how it sounds although hmn there’s a whole nother rabbit hole to go down but for now, the visual – the rhythm of it, and one in particular I played with the readability of it. so thinking about the looking at it of it, if you see what I mean."
october 13, 2015
"I’d gotten two printed, and maybe could have done a third, but decided not to try to jam it in, that’s when Things Happen. So if I get there next session on time or a bit early like I’d meant to for that, then 3 shouldn’t be a problem but still, feeling the momentum, go in on a weekend day* which is the advantage also of the day light and I have the base of the form with the identidingbat to start from so it goes smoothly the set up that is and the Vandercook behaves itself
speaking of which, behave that is, judi had said – before starting to print hers – i will try and behave
which is not what she’s known for so I asked behave??? in what way? and why?
her response by behave i mean (as best i can) follow the agreements as we stipulated…"
november 20, 2015
"OK, cut the sting. Don’t get sidetracked with options. 10 inches. Cut the damn string. Oh these scissors are too big. This is going to take a while one at a time … zzzt zzzt zzzt light bulb flickering noise DING! Cut a piece of cardboard, wrap around, cut at the ends. DONE. Why didn’t I just do that sooner?"
december 10, 2015
"next evening a few more pages, 72.2%! and then the remaining poems the next. there’s a rhythm to it now, although the various papers all are a little different in how they take the glue and how well they play with the string but it’s all good.
...
Soundtrack: Foo Fighters, The Colour and The Shape; Them Crooked Vultures; Steve Earle, I Feel Alright; Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, All the Roadrunning; Joe Ely, Letter to Laredo; Jo Carol Pierce, Bad Girls Upset by the Truth; Evan Lurie, Selling Water by the Side of the River."
december 21, 2015
"SusanAmalia (who is actually the only Susan in the group, but for some reason quite often gets referred to with her last name) asked what we had gained from it. Hmn. Good question.
That in working on a collaboration there is still some of the same dithering that happens when I work on my own, and some that is different, but overall the working with others helped keep momentum. That external motivation… AND!!! That something like this is NOTHING like the “group project” bane of my school days – where more often than not it took longer to come up with something that was worse than what I could have done on my own – but infact working with others can be a splendid joyous sharing where we come up with a sum more than the parts."
if you want to work on your own book art or printing project, don’t hesitate to contact the NBLA.
ALL WAYS KNOW-
Poems composed at the type case
at Iota Press in Sebastopol, California
during National Poetry Month 2015
Megan A. Arnold
judi goldberg
katie nealon
