res-i-due
noun
a substance that remains after a process such as combustion or evaporation
These are the back and front covers of the notebook I carried around to make, record (see my calendar and checklist), and store all of my blackout poems. I used the back cover (above) to absorb all the marker bleed, and it still reeks from the fumes of hundreds of poems.
The front cover says, “If it isn’t play, what good is it?” and has a quote from Henri Cartier-Bresson:
…we deal in things that are continually vanishing…and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on Earth that can make them come back again…
For photography, this is true: if you don’t snap the shutter at the right time, the moment has vanished.
For blackouts, it’s similar—mark over the wrong word, and it’s gone forever—but also different: as for moments in life that have vanished, blackout poems are the “contrivance” that can make them come back again.
William Burroughs claimed that cut-ups were a form of time-travel, and it’s no coincidence that the second poem in my book is about instructions for a time machine.
I’ve spent the last six months dipping into the pensieve. Now it’s time to move forward, think about the future. Discover the the next project.
How do you fill the empty nest?
I’m not artist enough (i.e. not an artist) to have an empty nest. I guess I’m filling my pensieve for now, but that might just be unartistic apathy.
I’m just piping up to say that the back cover of the notebook would make a really cool back (or front) cover for the ‘actual’ book.
Congratulations on it all. The book will certainly be at least excellent, but having a glimpse into the artistic process behind it has already been fascinating and, that word, inspiring.
How do you fill up the empty nest? Here’s what I’d do in your shoes:
1. Wander through my old notes/journals on other projects.
2. Read books I hadn’t had time to read while finishing the book.
3. Drink beer and play guitar.
4. Hang out with my wife and friends.
Artists create. I’m sure you’ll come up with something else soon.
I try to have the next idea forming before I finish the one I’m working on.
Or just give yourself a project you’ll never finish so you can work on it indefinitely.
Oblique Strategies: http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/
nifty little post. Thanks for the Cartier-Bresson quote; it suits me.
I find what’s next by wading through the mass amounts of half-actualized notes scrawled to myself, things I couldn’t think about during the Big Work. I meander through webs of acquaintances, offline and on, seeing what grabs my attention, aesthetically or thematically. I read, relax, and pick at small projects, confident that something amazing will come along.