Paper Engineering and Poetry

*Click the images to see THE WORDS in ACTION.

Works on this page are from Foray: An Imaginative Conversation with the Future (2021-2023), a collaboration between Halifax-based writer Sue Goyette and me. It was a research funded project rooted in the idea of interactive pop-ups navigated by poetry. Pop-up are usually relegated to children’s literature due to there inherent sense of wonder and discovery. However, when applied to poetry and the meaning making it instigates—a literary process that unfolds within concentrated, spare phrases—there’s much to explore as paper constructions that unfold and refold meaning. The project was meant as one way to move forward within current geopolitical strife along with concerns surrounding climate change, a way to rekindle hope, while also acknowledging the personal and collective losses we have and continue to endure. The project included several community-based workshops, a workshop on paper engineering that I took at Penland School of Craft with artists Colette Fu and Beatrice Coron, as well as a residency that Sue and I both attended at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts.

*Much gratitude to the Canada Council for the Arts and their support of this project.