This project is meant to show the intersection of poetry and light. The power and boldness of words collide with the power of light and shadow. All of the words used create poetry, stanzas of light and shadow. The words are created on playing cards to show how by creating this from tools of a game it actually lends the words more seriousness, more gravity.

I wrote this poem and couldn’t wait to give it a visual home as well. There were many aspects of the poem that I wanted to make part of the book. For the materials themselves – the book is covered with wood grain contact paper so as to give the impression of being made of wood. This way the words themselves, when written on each page, can give the illusion that they are almost part of the wood grain. The inside of the book is red and that red color is revealed in the opening of the door on the last page as well as if the book is pulled open longways. Red for the concealed anger that the speaker reveals only in the last line. Wood for the wall built by the tone and subject of this poem.

I chose to put the secret as the last line and have the opening there to illustrate that this hiding that the speaker does, this wall-building, seems complete and impenetrable. Then she reveals the secret anger and pain that fuels the poem, but not till the end, not till you believe that there is seemingly no way into this wall. It seemed too obvious to put the door in the parts of the poem that directly talk about what is inside the closet. Those lines only represent what is being physically hidden and the symbolism there is that those lines help to build the façade of the living room. I felt strongly that the voice that addresses her mother is the small, hidden, pained voice that needs its own small door. It was also important for me to keep each line of the poem intact, to not have to break the lines in order to fit them on each page.

I had been thinking of an encounter I recently had with a fox when the idea for this project began. I thought that what I felt when I saw the fox was a poem about memory because his quick, sharp legs reminded me of the hands of a clock moving. So I found an old travel clock and decided to make it into an accordion book. Then I wrote the poem and figured out how it could fit on the pages.

I took a lot of the clock apart to build the book. I knew it had to be an accordion because of the meaning of the poem. It needed to grow physically to show how the speaker expands in the moment. But then the folding back again raises the questions about how much can we really move on, or how much can we really forgive. Time stretches and bends, but, at least for the speaker, returns to the same hour. There is an element of being caught and trapped in a memory. I made the face of the clock the same hour at the beginning of the book as at the end. The pages in between house the poem on one side and a collage of timepieces on the other. This way, even visually, the reader can see that element of time stretching yet returning to a previous form.

This is a wind-up clock and the ticking seems very appropriate when reading it. Inside the top of the case there are instructions for the reader as to how to use the book. I want the reader to wind the clock before they begin, so that the ticking can be heard. I think it gives a realism to what’s happening with time and memory in the poem, and also it has a haunting aspect because it doesn’t stop even when you finish and close the lid.

Upon viewing the painting "Siena Dos Equis" by Susan Rothenberg at the Baltimore Museum of Art, I was inspired to write a poem about the experience. The poem appears on the inside of this handmade artist book, with my image and the image of the painting imposed over it. The pages that fold out of the piece contain additional black-out poems about my experience with the painting. The outside of the book is a reproduction of the frame and painting style of Rothenberg. The handle by which the book is opened is a miniature reproduction of the placard next to the original painting. The book is meant to house and honor the poem, which houses and honors the experience of viewing this artwork.

This poem and book is a form of self-portrait. The book has literal as well as metaphoric weight. The pages are on a ring so that a page can be held in each hand when being read, to feel the heaviness and compare them. Also, the ring can open for someone to weigh the pages or consider the weight of them separately. There are metal weights inserted in the construction of some of the pages and I have left them slightly visible. For example, the stanza about adopting my daughter is two pages long. These pages face each other because it seems the best way to represent an intimate pain between two people. Both pages weigh exactly the same - .5 ounces. The page with the missing center has been weighted around the edges to make up the difference and match the preceding page. In fact, every page of the book works in relation to each other, heavier or lighter, broken or whole. I wanted to play with the concept of weight and all its meanings contained within the poem. The title of the book - 6.7 oz. - is the actual weight of the book. It is square and small so that it can be held in one hand - all that heaviness can fit in your palm.

"For Spacious Skies" was written in response to the results of the investigations following the mass death of birds that fell from the skies of Louisiana and Arkansas in 2010-2011. This book was handmade by the author and is intended to be experienced in two ways. Upon opening the book, the reader will find words that appear to be flying, unstructured, free. The poem on the outside can only be read completely when the book has been closed and the birds have been stilled, symbolizing the way the poem only came into existence because the birds ceased to fly. All words on the wings inside become a part of the poem outside.

In my poem "Spring" there is the metaphor of a cardboard box being blown across the street like a woman crawling on her knees. So I wanted to bring the whole poem to life through a life-sized cardboard art-piece. The poem itself is written on a torn piece of paper. The rest of the woman is made of cardboard, a material usually discarded as trash. It tears like she hurts. It has an inside to expose. Her back is covered with human hands, all palm down, to symbolize the pressure on her. On the back of her neck are the words "should" and "shouldn't." Her head hangs. Under her outstretched hand is a barcode. Just as cardboard boxes can be recognized by barcodes, so too does she hold this out to the world in the hopes of being acknowledged and understood.

On the underside you read the box instructions "Handle With Care" because this woman is most vulnerable in her stomach, her source of new life - that which is challenged by the poem and the season.

I took the art-piece to many locations and photographed the woman. This book is handmade and includes the original poem, the explanation of the artwork, as well as the original photography .