the sensation is without artifact: text(ile) triptych

cyanotype on kozo paper, pink-red thread

This triptych is formed from three different manifestations of the text of a single poem on printed on kozo paper. The first manifestation, “cloud cover” is a cyanotype of the text printed on a cloudy day. The diffuse light and uneven substrate combine to blur entire swathes of text leaving behind undulating legible stanzas. “stitch meter” is a video of another cyanotype print of the text that has been cut into strips and then fed through a sewing machine to produce lined paper yarn. “knit slip” is the textile that I knitted from that paper yarn. In the process of knitting, I slipped stitches and carried the yarn over in order to reveal selected phrases.

This triptych was initially published in Ghost Proposal before being featured in Poetry Daily’s “What Sparks Poetry” series, where it received an especially sensitive reading from Lloyd Wallace.