The Poem as the Book

I'm super honored to have been encouraged by Meredith to participate in her poetry project on her blog, Half Starts & Trails Ofss.

I discuss the making of this piano-hinge book, which I made around a poem by Jenny O'Grady written in response to a painting by Melissa Van der Kaay for The Light Ekphrastic.

I've truly enjoyed Meredith's posts so far this month (including a wonderful one by her mom), so be sure to take a break and check them out.

 
I haven't been able to find a super tutorial of piano-hinge binding online, but there are several books with instructions available at the giant craft and book stores. It's fairly simple, once you get the hang of it. It's a heck of a lot easier than copic binding!You can use almost anything to bind it with: wooden skewers, toothpicks, coffee stirrers, chopsticks, straws, even sticks. My house is full of straight things I got for free around town, usually one at a time so that I don't feel like I'm actually hoarding.
And thank you to my editor Joshua, who wrote my post's intro paragraph with a better understanding of my written voice than I was managing to, and also for taking the photos of the book.

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Supplies: Core'dinations cardstocks, Southworth Résumé paper, bird punch by ekSuccess, wooden skewers (from grocery store), HP printer & ink, acetate, SCAL & Cricut, Adobe InDesign, bone folder, ZipDry glue

I put together this basic tutorial on how to "stamp" with your printer.

You can view my other piano hinge books here.

All of my mini-books are here.

Read my whole article about this book on Half Starts & Trail Offs.

Wing books 1 and 2

Some months ago I tired of using my own writing for mini-books, so I put a call for work out on FaceBook. I have a lot of creative-writing friends on there, so I was very pleasantly surprised to receive many poems from friends I didn't even know were writers! I'm always hearing people say I wish I were more creative, but in my experience there's no shortage of creativity in this world: and it's always life-affirming and just plain fantastic. One of the first people to contact me was my former co-worker at the University of Baltimore, Kapricia. We'd talked poetry in the past, but I had know idea how many words she had in her! She sent me two poems that I made into the first two books of what I hope will be a series (hint hint!): The Day I Fell in Love
It was a cold and rainy day,
she decided to come anyway.
I couldn’t hold back the pain
& tears, and Oh Yes! a lil fear.
I heard the doctor say
“Push, push, push my dear
I see her head,
she’s almost here,”
So I gave it a push
and heard her cry
what a relief I felt inside.
I held her in my arms,
looked in her eyes.
I couldn’t believe she was
ALL MINE!!

Kapricia Williams ©2010

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Wings to Fly
I have my own
cheering squad.
They clap as I fly high,
like a bird across the sky.
I’m soaring, flipping and doing tumbles
as I pass you by.
You see you had me cooped up
in what I thought
was love,
but I was wrong, so I
FLEW THE COOP! . . .
See the claps are not for me to return,
but for God’s grace and giving strength
to fly above all things.
Give Him a hand!

Kapricia Williams ©2010

Other books from my "FaceBook Friend" project:
the Shuttlecock!
Phenomenal Lady (also with a poem by Ms. Williams)

Phenomenal Lady book

Last week I received one of my favorite kinds of instant messages: Want to make a book?

Kapricia, also the author for my Wing Book Series, gave me this poem to work with:

"Remember what I told you"
she would shout and say
"We must always be ladies
even at when play."
Kapricia Williams ©2010

I was further influenced by her comment: "When you know better you do better. I love the phenomenal women in my life that showed me to act like a lady, be a lady, speak lady like and some day you too will be a phenomenal WOMAN!!" I know that we both grew up influenced by Maya Angelou, and I defy you to read her poem "Phenomenal Woman" without feeling a surge of power! So I added the title "Phenomenal Lady" as a little shout-out to our shared inspiration.

Having been raised as a lady (however fruitlessly), I really felt this poem! In my experience, such advice was given when the little lady was voicing her opinion... I immediately thought of the wonderful Tantrum images from Mo's Digital Pencil and used this project as an excuse to buy Two Tasha from the set. I contrasted that image with the sweet ballerina from Mo's Kiesha's Curtain Call, and finished the book with four color of tulle.


Digi stamps: Kiesha's Curtain Call and Two Tasha by Mo's Digital Pencil

View all of my mini books here.

"the Shuttlecock!" the Book

Since starting my love affair with making books, people have been very generous in sharing work and ideas with me. One of the poems sent to me for possible book-usage was from a kid I grew up with in Southern Spain. We were the children of civilian employees for the military presence there; I'm so very lucky to be in touch with many of those I grew up with (say what you might about FaceBook, it's been great for me!)

He shared several wonderful poems with me, but the one that just screamed book was "the Shuttlecock!", a memoir of sorts. It captures in words what I've never really been able to express:

the Shuttlecock!
by Chris Wallace

Childhood dreams could never come true.
I’ve already lived in a castle, gilded by runes.
I’ve already sailed the straights that separate
the Moors from the Iberian side of the shore.
I’ve been under the floors where Anne Frank cried.
I’ve stood on Golgotha’s ground where Jesus’ body died.
I’ve touched the iron curtain of hate
dripping with blood from the rusty gate.
I bought a Coke outside a 5000 year old ruin.
I climbed to the top of the world’s largest dune.
I drove through Catalonia to get to Pompeii.
I was lost in Barcelona for two and one half days.
The green fields of Ireland felt so home to me,
almost more than any other place I’ve seen.
And there are too many places left to mention.
So many experiences from Pisa to the London Dungeon;
But they all seem too far away,
the remains of some forgotten day.
I don’t want to forget that time and place
that now only floats in inner space.
Maybe, one day I can take you there
and we can create something new out of thinning air.

I played with several ideas for this book, but I just couldn't get past making it an actual shuttlecock. Finding the image was more difficult than I had anticipated; I ended importing a photo into SCAL and deleting the elements I didn't want cut. The pages are a series of strips; I edged everything with Antique Linen distress ink. My favorite part is how it closes completely flat, yet opens out completely.

Author's note: "The uncapitalized "the" and capitalized "S" is intentional. It's an homage to open source programming variable naming conventions." Love that!

"If you can make a book, you can do anything."

A wise woman told me that recently. It might not make as much sense out of context, but it certainly feels true after a day of making this book. It's the 5th piano-hinge book I've made in the past 2 weeks, and I just can't stop! This one is 2.72 x 2 inches.



The poem I used is one I wrote a couple of years ago, and recently revised...I feel like it has a home now. And I hope this inspires you to look up piano hinge bookmaking...you just need paper, scissors, and toothpicks or skewers. You could make it in your kitchen!

Oh, and if you're wondering what a poemoir is...I wanted the title page to look official, and this looked better than "a memoir-ish poem, without a narrative." That just doesn't look good in print!