What I learned about collage poetry in 2011

So, I discovered a few things about collage poetry this year.

Firstly, I can't do the collage poem a day thing, so I won't be posting any more 365 day challenges - there lies the way of madness.

When I start creating collage poems (and the whole mess that goes with it), I generally have 4 or 5 poems on the go at once. A phrase may make absolutely no sense in one poem (though it's not always a bad thing to challenge logic) but will fit beautifully in another poem.

My poems come in binges - the workshop I presented in September led to a binge that lasted several weeks, spread across my dining room table and my work desk and resulted in 18 poems. On average for that period, I made a collage poem a day.

So for 2012, I have set a goal of having a collage poetry binge weekend once a month.


Check back here for the results.

Meanwhile, here is my 'theme' for the next 12 months.

Bitten by the Collage Bug

Last Saturday, I presented my Sliced and Diced Collage Poetry workshop to Bellingen Writers Group at the gorgeous venue, North Farm. I have posted photos from the workshop on my Write on Track blog, but since the workshop, I have been constructing collage poems again.  Not only did I get the participants excited about the process, I re-ignited my own collaging bug.

Since the workshop, I have created 8 new collage poems. 

 My desk has been littered with runaway words and other words trying to seek a home on a piece of cardboard.

And there was a reason why I excavated my dining room table last week.   So I can collage and each poem can percolate exactly as long as it needs to...

A few years ago, I attempted a 365 days of collage poetry challenge - it lasted a month before it fizzled out. But there were a couple of things that hampered the project. 
1. My Virgo partner - who wasn't very impressed by runaway words, cut outs and half-constructed poems everywhere. 
2. my beautiful cat, Dorkus, who was impressed and liked to contribute - in not always a constructive way.

Sadly Dorkus is no longer around to mess up my half-constructed poems, and bless them with his cat hair,  and the partner became an ex-partner last year, so he can no longer grumble about any kind of creative mess I make.

Have scissors, will cut.  

Have glue, will stick. 

Have imagination, will create. 

Have life, will have fun.

With 8 or more poems in progress on the dining room table, I may re-commit to a 365 day challenge. I'll see how it goes over the next few weeks - stay tuned to see what the bug may bring...

The Body Image Project

Nambucca Valley Writers Group is compiling an anthology called Food for Thought with all of our members asked for contributions based around food and recipes, up to 10 pages.

Instead of writing a short story with recipes, I decided to do something a little different, a little out of my comfort zone, a bit of a creative stretch for me. I decided to create a collage story.

The text was easy - once I started, it just flowed out. It became a story about body image, about the media's schizophrenic obsession with body image, about how my body image has been shaped over the years. I had many food magazines I could cut up for background collage photos along with the usual gossip magazines and sensationalist headlines. But then I was advised new parameters for the artwork: everything had to be in black and white, so it would reproduce okay.

That condition vetoed my use of magazine reproductions - photos of food in magazines do not come in black and white. So here I was with 490 words of text, and nothing to stick it on. I'd even worked out the layout of the text in a visual diary, but I was still waiting for the vision.

I started thinking about an artwork I'd seen many years ago, most likely in a Biennale at the Art Gallery of NSW. It was by Barbara Kruger and called "I can't look at you and breathe at the same time." The text was superimposed over a black and white image. This long ago memory became my base inspiration.

I bought a new camera. I thought about the words, and I thought about the text and the images that would suppport or juxtapose the text. I decided to take photos on my trip. Surely in Melbourne I would come up with some great photos for the project. My photos of chocolate on the chocoholics tour did not meet my requirements for the backgrounds - something about the way handmade chocolate is laid out for sale doesn't really make it photogenic. Nice in reality, but it doesn't make the conversion to two dimensions.

On my first free day, I went to Queen Victoria Markets. I gazed wistfully at The Drunken Poet pub and remembered the night back in April when I had watched Chris Wilson play, and thought briefly about the matchbox accommodation I'd stayed in that night. I'd picked much better accommodation this time around. Then I headed into the markets, only mildly distracted by clothes, because produce was my target.

And I took photo after photo of yummy stuff:



When I got back home, I had the images printed in black and white, cropping so that they were all in portrait view rather than landscape. I ordered 5X7 prints as that is the closest to A5 - the format the anthology will be printed in. Then I printed out the text, cut it up, and laid the photos on the table, matching the text against the background images.



And it worked. I didn't need any extra text cut from magazines. The food photos and the text are enough to make my point.



Now I'm wrestling with double-sided tape to get those words into place. Who knew it would take so long to stick the words down? Then I will scan the images and email them to our Food for Thought editor.

It's been a long absence from this blog, but I've noticed that I'm getting many hits on my website for collage poetry - so I plan to be around more often, creating poems more often and in two weeks time, I will be presenting a 'Sliced and Diced' collage poetry workshop to Bellingen Writers Group. Later I will publishing 'how to make collage poetry' tutorials to my website.

Stay tuned and cut and paste!

Nothing

Finally, some new collage, thanks to my recent retreat with my writers groups. Jen and I got collaging, and I suggested we have some collage weekends in the future as there's no point getting out all those words and make all that mess for just one poem.

The collage poetry recipe

The recipe seems simple enough but I haven't been following it lately. The magazine collection has been growing but the words haven't been making it to paper.

But I really have to focus if I'm going to produce an anthology by the end of the year.

I have a fascination with cardboard coloured drawers to collect the cut-out words in. I've taken a small set of drawers to work - if I fill it with words, I may be able to turn out a poem during my teabreaks.

I've also started some visual collages of my novels - 'I'm with the Band' collage in progress is pictured.

Meanwhile, Jennifer has made some gorgeous Easter collages. I feel like eating Easter Eggs just looking at them.

Bright and colourful. Who says you only need to send cards at Christmas?

Available at The Chickollage shop right now!

New collage projects

I've been very slack on the new collage front. Trying to develop systems to make the collaging easier but there is still so much to do which has nothing to do with collage.

Actually, I lie. I've completed a 3D collage poetry project. I cannot show it to you here now as it is a present for a friend and I don't want her to see it until she opens her parcel. But all will be revealed once I know she has her custom collage. This is probably the first of several 3D projects as long as I can get my hands on the raw materials. Unfortunately, items pictured in the Spotlight catalogue do not always appear in my local store, so I'm going to have to talk to someone to have them ordered in.

I think the anthology will be next year's project. We're heading into Nanowrimo in a month's time, and I want to knock my novel Diary of the Future into shape for submission so I doubt that I will be able to collage every day. It certainly was a nice idea but realistically I cannot keep it up for any extended period of time.

I also have now registered chickollage.com so am deciding what needs to go on that site. Last year when I first came up with the term chickollage, somebody registered the domain name, obviously thinking they would be able to sell it back to me at a profit. Well, the registration lapsed so I grabbed the domain.

I've also added a large number of Jennifer Gordon's photo collage designs to the greeting card section of The Chickollage Shop. It's great to see that you can now buy greeting cards in lots of 1 or 10, and there are also notecards.

A hiatus from Collage Poetry and a Cafepress special promotion

Okay, I admit it. I've been really really slack when it comes to the collage poetry thing.

My scanner died, and combined with all the extra work I've been doing, I just couldn't fit in the time to collage. Until I got inspired to collage a mask for the upcoming Romance Writers of Australia conference. Here's the result.

Now it's that great time of the year where I actually get some money back from my taxes, so I've purchased one of those all-in-one scanner-copier-printers. I love it!

So it's time to get into the collage again

I haven't neglected it completely. I have bought a heap of second hand magazines and have been cutting out the necessary vocabulary. And I realise before the trip to Sydney in a couple of weeks, I may have to clear the magazine shelves at home to make room for four. Robbie's father has been storing a heap of magazines from the nineties for me. In fact, picking up half of them 18 months ago lead to the creation of Chickollage and the beginning of the collage poetry obsession. I guess he still has them....anyway, I'm prepared to pick them up and bring them home.

Cafepress has announced a special promotion on t-shirts: buy three t-shirts and get one free. Head over, check out the range....you just never know. I just purchased one of Jen's designs...Legendary Punk Poet...to wear to Byron Bay Writers Festival....

Jennifer Gordon on the other hand is making inspired photo collages with gorgeous flowers and colour designs. I have added a new section to the store purely for greeting cards because these collages will make stunning cards. You can now buy cards singularly, in packs of 10 or packs of 20 and Cafepress have also added notecards. Check out this new range - Jen has an amazing eye to putting these designs together.

#1 of 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

Okay, I decided to start afresh. See if I really can go 365 days straight with collage poetry. My head is back in my novel in progress, Diary of the Future. I attended a writing workshop on the weekend and received very encouraging feedback. I have a deadline in a month's time for a contest, so my mind is now with Nicky and her best friend Mel, boyfriend who needs to be renamed, and his ex- Sonya Scrag.

Nicky is a collage poet. She carries bags of words to school with her and makes collage poems at lunch time. I want to include some collage poetry in the novel. This may be one of them:

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Teenage public spat

clueless girls dishing it out

performing for public attention

dirty tricks claws are out

Gossiping, snooping, gloating

much of it jealous dead air

a shortage of class

fashion competition

got nothin' to wear

damned silly ostracism

Pieces of you: #31 of the 365 day collage poetry challenge

I'm in a dark mood today, dark stuff is appearing on the page but before you rush me off to the therapist, I only connect with murder on paper. My sympathy in the following poem is with the victim, and the people she left behind. In fact, I have no idea of who the perpetrator is -- that's probably why I don't write crime novels.

But I have a point to make. The kneejerk reaction of arresting students after handing in essays on violence is crazy. In the first play I wrote when I was 14, I killed off all but two characters (and they were robots) because I didn't know how else to end it. Hey, it worked for Shakespeare! In a later adult version, the two robots became a sexy android and she allowed one of the characters to live to be become her partner.

Teenagers write black brooding soul-tormented angst-ridden prose and poetry. It does not mean that they are going to act on these feelings or their creative urges. So guys, do some research before throwing them in the lock-up! One of them might be a budding Stephen King.

So I think my mood is because I passed a milestone today. 7 years in the one job - who would've thought it?

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

bloody female body becomes

today's news

pieces of

you on the street

difficult to recognise you

with your

demon makeover

shattered fragile beauty

brutally murdered

terror and the city

girl we've lost you

Unveiling Torment: #30 of the 365 Day Collage poetry challenge

Well, I've made it to the end of the first month of 365 days of collage poetry. 30 days, 30 poems, some better than others. My favourites so far have been I said No and Myth of Fear. I quite like today's poem too, most of it composed on my desk at work.

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Unveiling Torment

will never end

This dark world

of his own imagination

has taken on a life of its own.

Threatening

subversive

undiminished

desire

The enemy within

all the time

slowly revving up...

Living Dead Sidekicks: 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge #27

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Off-duty

Living dead sidekicks

in the driver's seat



Living it up

impulsive

partying,

cringe-making

screaming



headin' for

catastrophe



Yep, they're still doing it

Collage Poetry Recipe: 365 Day collage poetry challenge

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

The original collage poem recipe

cut-out ingredients

misplaced words

leftovers

recycled language

A dash of truth

A pinch of fantasy

stir up build it

Add something unexpected

Words hit their mark

no matter what happens

the language is sumptious

individual

infused with

creative nourishment

someone asked me how i do my collage the other day, so it got me thinking about my technique (if that's what you call it.) Sometimes I'll have a couple going at once. I'd like to have a dedicated surface so I could leave collages in progress out. However my cat believes that any flat surface is available to him and he makes the most of it. As it is, he has been sitting on a bunch of words today after I finished this poem.

Anyway, by thinkng about how the collage happens, I came up with 'the collage recipe.'

I'm a day behind with the collage at this point. Ironically, i had the day off work yesterday, and I didn't do a collage. I was having caffeine-withdrawal headaches, threatening to become a migraine and I ended up going to bed early.

I wonder if there's such a thing as collage block because that's probably what I'm going through right now. I will catch up.

Myth of Fear: #17 of the 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

This is the poem I started last night. The final joining words finished it off this afternoon. One for the madness that is the war in Iraq.

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Finally, the planet

abandoning its

DRAMAS of religion.

paying attention to an already distorted situation.

A common dilemma

Name-caling Name of God Dropping

Hate Crime

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Choose responsibilities

Or simply act now.

Discover what we have in common.

Oddly enough,

It's the Myth of FEAR

Legends: #16 of the 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

I am so tired. Why? it's 5 minutes to midnight, I have Mondayitis, andI've been working hard to make sure that I would post tonight (against a background of Desperate Housewives, half an hour of Brothers and Sisters and Wilfred). So much for getting to bed early. There are still words spread all over the lounge. The cat decided to plonk himself on my lap while I was collaging but that was uncomfortable for me. Later he sat on the lounge behind me and looked at the words with disdain. But with so many words floating around, I already have a head start on tomorrow's poem. In fact if I glue the words down now, I could post it after midnight. Nah, I need sleep instead.

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Once they were very famous

day and night

She had known him through the centuries,

literary metaphor,

the stuff legends are made of

splitting the atom

up on his doorstep

Another great work of art

Now someone mourns the goddess

lost forever

Back with a vengeance -

Will it be a reunion of demigods,

mythology back to life

Behind the Scenes & Evolution: #15 & 14 of the 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

Day 14 and I missed my goal. We spent the day at an air show, five hours straight on my feet.

Watching the formation flying of the Roulettes:

The fabuolus aerobatics of Inverted Down Under. How does he walk straight when he lands after hovering, diving, looping, and spinning in all directions?

And then I dropped in on the Bookfest. Book lover's heaven. I bought several out of print books, some more magazines to slice and dice, and a 1920 book called The Thousand Best Poems in the Worlds. The Books and Collectibles website indicates that it could be worth $80. I don't feel so bad about not buying the scripture book last weekend.

And then I got home and watched a couple episodes of Hex. And fell asleep. No collage poetry for the day.

So today, I made two collage poems to catch up.

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Behind the scenes

The tide is turning

We're almost there

The collective imagination

artists, authors,

get creative

find your niche

something for everybody

inspiration

magic

amazing.

So go crazy

perspective changes

The world spins off its axis

Together we can't lose.

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Twice a day.

don't be late....

Evolution begins

online and on time

about 74 per cent of the time.

Be what you want to be

Totally enthralling

Wow! Look at you now

These people are

a must see destination


And it's back to work tomorrow, why does the weekend go so quickly?

Dead Blonde #13 of The 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

The curse of the dead blonde celebrity mum

three men and a baby

'I slept with her' they say

'I think this is my baby'

DNA merry-go-round

The truth

Unveiled at last

She's got your eyes

and a lot of money

Congratulations Dad!

Well, I only just made it with 20 minutes to spare as it's 11.40 pm.

Sometimes it's the connecting words that take the longest to find. This one is dedicated to Anna-Nicole, may she rest in peace!

Secret Photos #12 of the 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

copyright 2007 Diane Curran

sometimes

secret photos of

ancient

boyfriends

- stirs up painful memories

Hard-won wisdom

relationships

time together

compromise

And the magic's

overboard

not your soulmate?

you can buy romances....

but to avoid disappointment

Make your attitude takeaway

stay single

Mmm....tasty!

I Said No - #11 of the 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

At first the whole page was going to be covered with the word 'no' but then the 'nos' shuffled around and starting forming a picture. So today's collage poem has colour, leaves and a visual form. And if you can't understand the meaning, I'm not sure I can help you.

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Real Talent: #10 of the 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

Poking fun at all the people who audition for Australian Idol (or American Idol if you're in the Northern Hemisphere)

Wanting a Little Less Drama - #9 of the 365 Collage Poetry Challenge

And we're back to the present after a little time travelling.




Easter Monday and another market on the way home. Again, very little in the way of magazines so I didn't make any purchases. In retrospect, I'm kicking myself for not buying an antiquarian book on scripture illustrations. It was a large format book, and the seller said it was published in 1899 although I didn't verify the date within the cover. I wanted to think about it, and go back later. Besides I would've had to ask Robbie to hand some money over for me to purchase it. And then it started to pour with rain, and we ran back to the car, and I forgot all about it. I can't even remember the exact title so I can't torture myself by googling to find out it was worth a fortune.


At the market was the silver statue. The little kid told him it was easy to stand still for long periods of time, so the statue got down from his platform and dared the kid to try it.




Today's collage is a wish of how I'd like things to be:

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran