Bliss
“Climax Came”
climax came.
I looked at
God.
He said, I’m going to give you something great."
“Blissed”
too blissed out
to care.
“Miracles”
her husband
thought they’d be pro-
ducing
miracles.“
Beautifully Growing”
beautifully
growing
Artist’s Statement
“Bliss” is part of a much longer and larger story still in progress, and it’s a gift to be the one to discover it hiding in magazine articles and newspapers. Lost, hidden, or forgotten words and images find new life in these analog collages, telling the tale of a man and woman who over the course of forty years fall in love, fall out of it, and find their way back to each other again.
I started doing blackout poetry as an attempt to avoid drafting my novel, and I never expected to find a whole new story. Illustrating it via collage brought me back to my teenage years when I first discovered how therapeutic scissors and glue could be. In a digital world, there is something to be said for making things with your hands. There is no escaping the messiness of analog art when it is scattered like confetti across your home, sticking to the bottom of your feet as you make it through your day.
Over the years, each image found me right when I was looking for it.
Somehow, art always arrives on time.
With each layer of paper and ink, a new story emerged, like an additive sculpture. Like the relationship in my story, what was once abandoned—each thrift store photo, old text book, outdated encyclopedia, or tiny speck of discarded ephemera—has new life.
I hope my work encourages you to look twice at everything, searching for the deeper story it may tell.
These poems were featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.
