Hello again

Hello from 2021, it's been a long time since I wrote on this blog.

I started a draft post in February 2014 announcing: "I have been accepted for a writing residency at Prairie Center of the Arts and will spend March completing my book All Things That Rise."

I haven't posted anything since then because life. I did go to the residency foe a whole month, and I did "finish" All Things That Rise. The book was my thesis for an MFA in writing and I earned the degree with honors (May 2014). 

In 2015 I took a sabbatical and Chris and I took off in a camper to explore what ended up being 26,000 miles of the American west. I blogged about that elsewhere and I kept on writing poetry, largely for myself and a group of grad school friends who kept up a private monthly blog. It was amazing how long that lasted.

Life has continued. Chris and I returned to the east coast in October 2016, got married in October 2017, bought a house in one of the hilltowns in June 2018, and have by now started building a studio for him on our property. I'm still writing, in an office of my own. Feeling somewhat more settled in life has left room for creative growth and for new explorations into creative community.

I set up a LinkTree to make available my recently published work in RIC Journal, Beir Bua Journal, and Hearth & Coffin Journal (which are all free and available to view online), and I post updates on Twitter as @ObjetAutre. 

A couple other pieces are coming out this month (in May) including some recent work of what I call Poem Objects, and something older, one of my favorite long poems from my thesis -- after all this time, I used some quiet days by the fire this winter to dust off All Things That Rise.

In the meantime, here's one of the pieces in RIC Journal, you can see the rest on their website --

Russian Alphabet Book

I recently created a one-of-a-kind Russian alphabet book.

The lettering and design is all done by hand.

Each spread focuses on one letter and includes a pronunciation guide, words using that letter, and a layout influenced by the Russian artists and designers I studied while in design school -- Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Kazmir Malevich, and Vladimir Mayakovsky (who was also a poet).

The book uses a hand stitched coptic binding.

Creative Residency at Elsewhere Studios

From December 26, 2011 through January 8, 2012, I was a resident at the beautiful Elsewhre Studios in Paonia, CO. Willow, Karen, and many friends have made Elsewhere a place with a uniquely positive energy. I am grateful for my time there.

A Novel Idea, at the Hampden Gallery

December 11, 2011 to February 19, 2012

Incubator Space at UMASS' Hampden Gallery
Amherst Bulletin article about the show

Opening: Sunday, December 11, from 2 to 4 pm

I am part of a group show including painters, sculptors, writers, filmmakers, printers, and all-round lovers of the printed page who boldly bend, fold, and mutilate traditional books until all that remains are discrete art objects.

My piece, Philyra (pictured below), is a site-specific installation of Anne Carson's Nox.

 

Naugatuck River Review

My poem, "Taming the Quinetucket," was recently published in the Naugatuck River Review: a journal of narrative poetry that sings (Issue 6, Summer 2011). The journal is not published online but ordering and submissions info is available on their blog.

Paper City Studios: PAPERWORKS

Chris Nelson and I collaborated on a sculpture/poetry piece for the Paper City Studios spring exhibition. From May 6 to June 4, Paper City showed interpretations of the theme, works on paper, by a variety of talented local and regional artists.

 
 

Dear City, City Love

     Even in Kyoto,

I feel the frames of your hollow

mills carved tenderly in my mind.

The white Washi paper door slides

wide to un-

                 fold tearoom into dewy grounded

garden -- as at home, City Love,

river rot sets deep

      into beam

until bricks crumble down-

ward to let light fall furiously within.

 Pictures of Chris' building process...

Parsons Hall Project Space

The Parsons Hall Project Space hosted an evening of music; literature; video art; scandinavian edibles; hot drinks; and ice sculptures. Alexis read her Holyoke building poems.

 

Photos
Saturday, January 29, 2011

Parsons Hall Project Space

362 Dwight Street, Holyoke, MA

Dear Buildings;

Five of Alexis' epistolary prose poems addressed to buildings in a post-industrial mill city are available in issue 8 of Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics.

Canal Gallery

This poem was donated to the Canal Gallery & Artist Studios at its summer 2010 fundraiser.

Dear Second Canal;

I dream of silver foxes slinking along your bank. I dream

in orange and green,

of ivy unfolding beside your water

and of knotted tree trunks thick with moss.

I am infected with water moving like the drape

of a kimono sleeve–

Like breath against stone–

Slick as the foxes along your bank.

Water, delicate as air.

I reflect this back to you, Second Canal,

as I dream of sneaking

along the banks of your silver.

(from a postcard poem series written home to Holyoke, in Kyoto, Japan)