Citadel - Series 2

There were eventually four sets of books bound for The New Alexandrian Library and book 2 begins a new chapter in the Citadel Series.  All this information will be included on the article on David, but it is here for my own reference! These are very precious books to me.

Citadel II/1 is dated 9/5/2017 and II/31 9/12/2017.

This series concluded the words included in the Cyberwit publication of The Citadel. 

II/1 

has a thematic development with many references to war and death, weapons and Ani, evil in history with the inquisition, urban references with blinking neon, references with deep space, atomic fusion, helium arc. The metaphysical – transmigrations, psyches, ruach.

Ruach – a Hebrew word meaning breath or spirit – and so David breathes the traces of his worlds into our own consciousness.  

Jasmine appears again in the concluding poem:

Jasmine’s pitch

arraigned in gravel

and ice evening sounds

elliptical bends

weapon groves the

Rosenbergs executed

By our poor time…

He is coupled with the Rosenberg’s, atomic spies who were executed in the 1950’s, smoking jackets with elbow patches who represent academics and Hobbes: a traveler representing David’s own self-reflexivity, where the structure of his words indicates his own concerns. 

Citadel III/1 – III/39
Citadel III marks the  beginning of The Citadel 2 published by Cyberwit.  Citadel III/1 is dated 16/12/2017.  This book concludes with III/39 dated 28/11/2018. That’s many months of writing and honing in on leitmotifs so varied they become their own theme. 

Notes for III/1:

                  

Lake Shore Drive – very expensive real estate along Lake Michigan shoreline stretching along the city of Chicago and its wealthy suburbs. 

Mines – reference to Kingston Mines

Haymarket (a frequent occurrence in David’s work) – Chicago labor riots in 19^th century.

Drawbridges - many of them in downtown Chicago over the Chicago River.

Liftraft – wade upwards

Green River – Chicago River (old Mayor Daley the First dyed the river green on St Patrick’s Day)

Now this was a strange tradition I had never heard of – but it made for interesting reading. In spite of a poetic set very structurally in Chicago (Lake Shore Drive/Haymarket/Kingston Mines/drawbridges/Chicago River/Kemper Building, in Stone-ian style we are forced to touch base with Charlemagne and Mars Station (referencing the second simulated Mars analogue habitat owned and operated by the Mars Society?), tied together with the Chicago skyline by “dizzy tranquil threads”. 

III/39 notes – a sombre set of words, this, where on is left contemplating

A pint of blood

one wonders

an account

of a soul.

Notes:

Travellers – thinking of road travellers, the Honduran migrants flooding the US and,  ‘traveler’ as a term relating to ‘commonism’ (I’m not certain what that reference is).

Creaking door – thinking of a gate to an alley

Mortician on the battlefield….coffee percolating… - the jump from life to death

Game of roulette – element of chance in the drama

                  The mortician

                  surveys the battlefield.

                  there are no

                  blessings. 

                  Choked forms 

enter the cold

realm.

Mary Barnet gives a very excellent review of David’s Citadel poems where she describes him as a Surrealist n the school of Salvador Dali. I’m not certain I agree with that categorization although there are many similarities in terms of the subconscious interacting with sensory representations.  And of course, let’s not forget the role of chance in the juxtapositions of thoughts and words.  

Citadel III/41 – IV/31

The fourth book in the Citadel Series comprising typed poetry and accompanying hand written notes. Citadel III/41 is dated 23/12/2018.

Citadel III/41 uses recurring references to Gettysburg. There are images of the memorial battlefield in Pennsylvania, haunting word representations of thousands of Union and Rebel troops with 19^th Century muskets firing and killing – so much dying.  The fields are filled with bloody soldiers dying in the grass.  The trees are smoking - nature too, wounded by the travesties men impose violently on men.   There is another reference to the North Sea.  This time David said he used this ectype to depict Guido’s (Vermeulen – Belgium)  exit and Jasmine, now ‘plays irradiated tons on the piano at the bar’.  This mental nudge to David’s alter ego is perhaps situated right there for us to realise that the filter David sees the world through is veiled through the mediation of another.  The alter ego intervenes on behalf of the vulnerable poet in order to shield him from first hand horror. 

                  

Citadel IV/31 concludes this series (so far) and finished the publication The Citadel 2. Jasmine is here in full force, recounting a very abbreviated 70 year history which includes the Cold war of the 50’s, the radical 60’s, the ‘normalization’ of the 70’s, to the present. 

David was in Israel in 1970 – 1971. Jasmine and David entwine, boon mental companions enjoying Jasmine’s “symphonic compositions”, while David in first person tells us:

                  In Israel above the wailing 

wall at night, the Old City of

Jerusalem floats like a gigantic,

bright full moon that seems

so close I could touch  it by 

standing n a ladder and I

thought that God was hiding

on the other side of the moon.

David Stone - Citadel 20 - 67

Citadel 20 – 67

This collection of poems, accompanied by hand written notes by David Stone, represents poetry in The Citadel series which would eventually find its way to the publishing house of Cyberwit. The first 19 Citadel poems were bound as two envelope books for An Encyclopedia of Everything in the "Undo to Read" series.  Citadel 20 is dated 15/11/2015 and Citadel 67 is dated 27/4/2017. 

I am very grateful to have observed, in a small way, David’s journey in this series.  His words inspired artworks which became a win-win for both of us and his yellow post-its encouraged.  This collection was bound in December 2019 while working on a paper of David's book works in my collection. These poems are not for the faint hearted, nor the casual reader. David’s invitation to engage is open, but also guarded, loaded with LIFE. 

Leopard Jasmine

From the safety of a comfortable chair, one can travel the world of Professor Leopard Jasmine, a character who can change his spots. In fact, David Stone has given his alter ego the opportunity to traverse anywhere David is willing to take us in his Word World. Leaving the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago AND his wife and children, Jasmine embarks on a journey to  ‘find himself”. As time and later works expose, Jasmine will continue to wander in poetic flow through David’s words.  Here he is  a traveller/composer in this, David’s first book length poem,  then he is a magic user who visits Atlantis in his play Magus Jasmine, and later  a temporary, but continuous tenant in later works. In Leopard Jasmine, Jasmine incantates sym-phonetic notes whilst traversing the stars, Olympus, the Sahara, Iowa and everything in between.  Each of his destinations are compressed in time and space to appear in solar orbit at all times in all places. Doomed as a mortal, doomed as the wandering dead, it is clear that even if he is lord of the sun, Jasmine is beset by his humanity. It plagues his symphonies and emotions,  complicates his relationships and douses his spirit in anger and sadness.  Even as he orbits the plane of Ra, delineating

the matrix of lords of light in which he dwells

hunting the mountains of Montana, music issues out of rabbits.

In the Caribbean Sea, living on fish and water and fruit,

a desert island, alone with an image of a woman

dressed in white, with dark hair down her back

kissed by a gentle warm wind with blue eyes

which dance upon the surface of the waves of the sun

Jasmine must die.

But, as a pseudo man, Jasmine, made of scented words, bitterness, fragmented memory shards and hopeless dreams, he will continue to walk the corridors of David’s imagination. 

Evidence for Trees

Evidence for Trees

Edition of 4 handmade Artists’ Books. Spine: The Authentic Massacre of the Innocent Image, painting # 115. Accordion bound, text, paint, photographs, digital prints, photographs by Casey Aub. This was a book filled with strange words, written at a strange time in my life. 

Do you ever feel like you’re being coloured in said Casey?

What do you mean?

Like when you turn the pages of books people are sometimes red, or yellow, or blue, it’s a scratchy feeling.

---No said I, but some days when I wake up I feel so small I can walk under a coffee table and other days I feel so tall I cant get through the door.

Oh.

MA BookObject - Edition Footura black - Karl-Friedrich Hacker

I have not heard from Karl in quite a while, but suddenly again, he appears in the post with a surprise - doing something I have never got around to, but had always intended! What does one do with all the beautiful envelopes, with all the trouble people have gone to when sending zine material? A hand stitched, decorated book of envelopes from all around the world. I have to check if El Mao Tao is still going - that was an amazing assembly book - does anyone know? Such editions were the halcyon days of Mail Art for me.  I think I will return an envelope book - at least I will FINALLY get around to making one.  The envelopes are quite revealing I think - perhaps more than the senders realize. And the stamps - tiny works in multiplication by artists of another sort. 

Babel Collaborations

There have been about 17 participants in this collaboration so far, with just 3 sets outstanding, but mostly on their way.  They have been collated into three pocket books for the New Alexandrian Library and one set has gone to Japan for exhibition in December.  Each participant received 5 other altered copies of Babel.

Here are some of the USA collaborations received:

                                                    Cheryl Penn/John Bennett (USA)

Cheryl Penn/Allan Bealy (USA)

Cheryl Penn/Rosaire Appel (USA)

Cheryl Penn/Mark Sonnenfeld (USA)

Cheryl Penn/Alicia Starr (USA)

Babel Edition 9

Original (Cheryl Penn)

# 1 Cheryl Penn (South Africa) and David Stone. Edition of 20.

I have not done a large collaboration for quite a quite a while, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how it pans out.  The idea is that I send participants 2 copies of a chapbook titled Babel, one to keep and one to alter.  The original altered copy is sent back to me and I make an edition of 7.  I keep one, two get sent back to the artist, one bound, one unbound for them to copy and reproduce if they wish.  They also receive 5 other chapbooks from other artists who have followed this same process. The first one I have tackled is with the poet David Stone (USA). David exchanged words via email. As a wordsmith David is immediately responsive to titles and images and his poetry is its usual enigmatic, apparently disconnected phrases and words which, once read somehow make total sense. They also evoke strong mental imagery. 

“bracketed barriers enclosed the summation of

orders

toes tagged

silence lost” 

As I had a bit of time on my hands, the copies I made have numerous hand painted elements, but I‘m not sure if this practice will remain, although 7 copies is quite manageable. There are an extra few copies for him and I to both distribute. I will be using this small volume as an enticement - (I hope!) for others to join in the collaboration. 

Original chapbook which was altered

Toxic Bachelors

Toxic Bachelors

Unique altered book, mixed media, including collage, altered text, inserted letters, nuts/bolts, glass case. 

So this is an oldie, but a goodie. I heaved it out from under the building rubble - not the bricks and mortar rubble, the STUFF rubble. I’m SO in two minds as to what to do with my collection of books. I must have, altogether, over 1000 artists books, in the main, handmade. I really DO need a reading room. Toxic Bachelors was part of my altered books stage. It was made in 2008 - its hard to believe its ten years old. The book I chose to alter was Toxic Bachelorsby Daniel Steele. The story in the main concentrated on 3 successful, good looking blah blah blah men who gave up their bachelor status for love, of the novel kind. The original text of the novel was painted out and words appropriate to a more sinister meaning were kept. For example, the words remaining on the page dealing with Alegre Patrice, the sadistic, deluded Frenchman who was convicted of 115 murder/rapes are:…an unforgettable night…and for one night at least she had forgotten everything she wanted… Quite spooky and thoroughly unpleasant when one removes words and phrases from their original context. There’s a lesson to be learned there for sure.  Within the pages I collected and inserted letters from women who have had toxic men in their lives. It’s not a pleasant read. 

Making Poetic the Visual and Visual the Poetic

Making Poetic the Visual and Visual the Poetic

This book came about as a result of Course 2 in the MoJo Modules - Accessing Instinctual Creativity. The five classes were:

What is Poetry and this included a skid through the history of poetry and its various forms. Using asemic writing, we then wrote a limerick, a quatern, a sonnet and free verse poetry - all of which would form part of a chapbook which was published in an edition of 5 at the end of the course.

Free Form word formation and association was the task in session 2. It was collaborative in that we all worked on 24 different sets of pages.

These will form part of the next edition of Mail Art Makes the World a Town (See An Encyclopedia of Everything - http://an-encyclopedia-of-everything.blogspot.com )

 Visual Representation of Words and Language (including Poetry) from Ancient times to today was the next section we tackled, including the skid, the slide…(you have to book for the course to find out about that one)!  And so we went on, until the final class where we assembled the artists books.  Remember - this is not about being a necessarily a poet - but everyone was surprised, how given the chance, words make their presence felt.  The course is about accessing creativity which resides inside ALL of us and this module used the poetics and visual-ness of words as medium.

The final hard covered book consisted of 4 chapbooks from the participants and a book of visual poetry by John Bennett (USA) who a while ago had sent me extra copies of one of his publications, in an accordion format with pamphlet stitch pockets.

Chapbooks - I have a LIBRARY to blog...!

Penn, Cheryl (South Africa)

Chapbooks

Babel (Where the Babbling Began)

A publication of 70 chapbooks by Tonerworks (Reed Altemus) 2013.  Going back to the start, where the babble began. It’s a very good practice to have a place one always goes back to when ‘stuck’. As language is one of my great passions, I always return to the Tower of Babel as the origin of new work - it’s a great spark, and Reed was kind enough to publish a set of these visual poetry images. 

Asemic Works

I paint, scratch, write, burn, print - you name it I make ‘writing’ from everything. It’s the foundation of all my work, the part that greets to canvas/wood/paper first. Sometimes it moves to become something else, but most often not. I see the confusion my work produces, but my journey on the Give Me Back my Mo-Jo courses more fully entrenches by engagement with this writing form.  (Published by 1999 Jelly Bean Co, edition of 15, no.1 of 15).

Life IS as complex as it seems

Yes! It really is…I don’t think that needs much explanation… (Published by 1999 Jelly Bean Co, edition of 15, no.1 of 15).).

Meta Poetry (a this and that on this and that Volume 1)

This chapbook was a VERY happy result of the course on Visual Poetry, given as part of the Give Me Back My Mo-Jo modules. It is an experiment with poetic forms and the introduction of my own ‘new’ structures; The Rorschach Plot, The Bleed and The Fade - something which definitely is going to receive further exploration. (Published by 1999 Jelly Bean Co, edition of 10, no.1 of 10).