#box project

alright, I know I already announced that I was done with the box project but uhh... NOPE! Turns out I am NOT done

recap: this is how the box was...

and this is a box now (so far)

Plus we have a Wing update

I didn't have elsewhere to hang it

Btw, while painting on the floor, the paint BLED THROUGH THE FABRIC AND ABSOLUTELY DYED MY FLOOR TANISH BROWN

So I used clorox whiped and cleaned it🥰

And lastly, what else to expect for the box project

I’ve been working on some photographs of my poem boxes to incorporate into lyric essays about them. Once again I’m struggling with the old issue of integrating text and image, though I suspect any progress on that front will have to wait for a later iteration of the essay.

For over ten years I had a near-daily photolog, and thus spent a lot of my free time, nights before bed mostly, editing and posting pictures to my site. I used to do this a lot but it’s been a while, around seven years or so, and I’m finding the photo editing to be tedious. 

I’ve been making oblique references to my Box Project for a while now, so I guess I should just say it. I make poem boxes. From the statement I just put on my site:

In the fall of 2016 I began to make poem boxes, and they have been obsessing me ever since. They won’t leave me alone. But no complaints: I love their company.

What is a poem box? So many answers. I could say: My boxes are like (inspired by) Cornell boxes, but each of my boxes interprets one of my poems. Or: They are poetic shadow boxes, dioramas, each a small contained universe, habitats where verse lives, a literary sculpture project.

Some of my poem boxes have accompanying lyric essays that I wrote as I built them. Notes on process, ingredient lists, additional poem bits inspired by their construction; whatever fits.

I hope to show them to the world someday, my poem boxes and their corresponding essays. For now I’m keeping them close. I’ve been sending them to a few journals, all of which consider words and images that are already online to be published and thus ineligible for consideration. So: You won’t see them here or on my site, not yet, though there are some in-process photographs on my Instagram.

Aside from extended world travel, this might be the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.