I conducted my second immersive/intensive reading on Wendy Xu's You Are Not Dead, transforming it into Your Dad.
Since I had corresponded the year before with Xu, the tone of this immersive/intensive reading is, perhaps, more casual or personal than The Oops; occasionally, I delve into confessional modes of writing and more frequently compose via direct address.
But, taking lessons, so to speak, from The Oops, I incorporated visual collage and found objects earlier on in the process. For instance, not only does the "microscope" page near the book's beginning contain a collaged image, but it also includes the flattened foil top of a bottle of wine I was drinking while working on it. Just as I wrote the Explanatory Notes to an "Homage to Joe Hall" in The Oops, I also wrote the Explanatory Notes (and erasure poems) to an "Homage to Wendy Xu," which corresponds to her beautiful suite "We Are Both Sure to Die." Your Dad also contains the framework for my "Proximity: Moon," which I would eventually hone into a more fully-realized document a few months later in typed letters to Tyler Gobble, Minetta Gould, and Trey Moody.
But, taking lessons, so to speak, from The Oops, I incorporated visual collage and found objects earlier on in the process. For instance, not only does the "microscope" page near the book's beginning contain a collaged image, but it also includes the flattened foil top of a bottle of wine I was drinking while working on it. Just as I wrote the Explanatory Notes to an "Homage to Joe Hall" in The Oops, I also wrote the Explanatory Notes (and erasure poems) to an "Homage to Wendy Xu," which corresponds to her beautiful suite "We Are Both Sure to Die." Your Dad also contains the framework for my "Proximity: Moon," which I would eventually hone into a more fully-realized document a few months later in typed letters to Tyler Gobble, Minetta Gould, and Trey Moody.
Furthermore, I sought to enhance and augment my process while reading Xu's collection by considering materiality more thoroughly. For instance, my erasures of the title pages use duct tape instead of marker or my typewriter. Likewise, I began slicing out lines of poetry and flipping them over, then re-adhering them to the page; to this end, a line from a poem on the recto side would become a line of a poem on the verso side, and vice versa. I also enhanced my paste-in strategies by using old film photographs that I had taken years before, as well as older collages. Finally, I used pastels to color the pages and their images.
CHAPTER 03: iSun: An Illuminated Text
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