Two Down and One To Go

Last week Shu-Ju and I did the second of our three artist’s talks/poetry performances in Portland. The first one at the Waterstone Gallery was more focused on the art itself because Shu-Ju’s show there contained paintings she was inspired to create by our book Water, as well as the book itself.

The second one at the Multnomah County Library’s rare books collection, focused more on the mechanics of making the physical book. Shu-Ju had an impressive display of the tools she used as well as book parts in process.She did a lot of hard work on this book, and it is a real treasure.

The third one will be at Stonehenge Studios, 3508 SW Corbett Ave., at 7 pm on December 14th. That one will focus more on the poems and how they came about. I’ll talk about what I’d already written before Shu-Ju asked me to collaborate with her, as well as a couple of things I tried before writing the final poem on the front of the book. I hope all my Portland friends will set aside the date.

In addition, I’m getting ready to do a reading at my Alma mater, Dickinson College October 9. The Stafford Library there purchased a copy of the book, and I will do a talk and reading for them. The challenge for me is that Shu-Ju can’t be there. So I am preparing some comments and a few pictures to show that will reflect as much of what Shu-Ju says about her part of the work to create this book as I can. This has been and will be for some time a labor of love for me. The more time goes on, the more I love this book, and I hope to convey that to the folks at Dickinson.