mutating the signature

With the last poem submitted by Dana, we are wrapping up the process section of the Untelling Stories issue and moving into the curated section. What does that mean? It means we’re going to do some work offline over the next week or so to edit, discuss, select, reject and organize the work for our final, curated, version of the issue.

Once we have done all the work we can, individually and collaboratively, to put the spit and polish on the issue, we will publish it in its entirety as one new post. If we get really stupid adventurous, we might also add a few other bells and whistles, such as audio recordings of some of the pieces or even creating a formatted electronic issue of the publication that will be available through Issuu. We’ll see how much work we can do within our allotted time.

Working together on the process version of the issue has been an amazing experience. Even though we have written with one another since Sept. 1, 2008, having the issue theme was an incredible mechanism for organizing our work together so that we pushed a dialogue — whether you can tell or not — all the way through the issue, as opposed to jumping from one individually or collaboratively authored piece to another without much individual or collective focus.

One of the reasons we chose to launch this first issue as a test flight that that places us in the roles of co-curators was to see what working on a publication that uses the model we devised felt like firsthand. We can both now say that we absolutely recommend this way of working to anyone who wants to sustain a conversation by way of poetry and art with another poet or artist. The model, for us, has been unparalleled in terms of helping us generate new work.

Now we are off to test what it’s like to go back and curate the work we generated and turn it into something more polished. We will report back on that experiences once we have … well … experienced it. We’ll see you in about a week with our completed collection!

Also: In the next couple of days, we will announce the editors of issue two, so stay tuned for that big news.

– for the left breast of Emily Van Duyne

They took the 110 degree day. They took the 34B maidenform bra. They took the 5-gallon fishtank with natural gravel and a self-filtering mechanism. They took the adult entertainment. They took the aquatic frog. They took the aqueduct. They took the automatic cat box. They took the baby bouncer. They took the back issue of mothering magazine. They took the bag of clothing for the less fortunate. They took the ballast. They took the beanie baby. They took the bee balm supplement. They took the bird cage. They took the bird. They took the box spring. They took the braided rug. They took the brisket. They took the broken dog. They took the bubble wrap. They took the bucket of lava rock. They took the calendar. They took the can of lard. They took the candle-making wax. They took the car battery. They took the cast-iron shelf. They took the cb radio slang dictionary. They took the chaise longue. They took the changing table. They took the chipped glass baby bottle. They took the christmas cookie cutter. They took the clay soil sample. They took the cock ring. They took the coffee table with inset glass. They took the collapsible IV stand. They took the convention center. They took the covalent bond. They took the crock pot. They took the custom orthodontia. They took the dead. They took the diaper cream. They took the digital piano. They took the diving board. They took the dopamine. They took the drain hair. They took the dust jacket. They took the efflorescence. They took the el camino. They took the fever. They took the fiberglass insulation. They took the fire stoker. They took the fishing rod. They took the fistula. They took the flat sheet for the queen-sized waterbed. They took the foodsaver. They took the full-length mirror. They took the funnelcake. They took the futon frame. They took the garden. They took the gingerbread house. They took the grout cleaner. They took the gummy eraser. They took the half dollar. They took the high chair. They took the highball. They took the hip-hop vocabulary flash card set. They took the honeycomb blind. They took the horse from the carousel. They took the hot cereal. They took the hot wheel. They took the humidifier. They took the indirect route. They took the indoor soccer goal. They took the infant’s designer outfit. They took the ink jet printer cartridge. They took the instant replay. They took the joint compound. They took the jumpersizer. They took the landing pad. They took the lantern-style light fixture. They took the left breast of emily van duyne. They took the letter q. They took the letterpress. They took the library. They took the light box. They took the little tykes basketball net. They took the live birth. They took the llama cross-stitch throw pillow. They took the lock on the front door. They took the long dog leash. They took the longaberger basket. They took the manmade lake. They took the marlboros. They took the maternity belt. They took the meat cleaver. They took the metal lighter. They took the metallurgy. They took the microwave oven. They took the minnow. They took the miscellany. They took the morning. They took the motorola cable modem. They took the mustard gas. They took the no-iron blouse. They took the oboe’s handmade double reed. They took the organic whole wheat bread. They took the oxyclean. They took the pantaloons. They took the patent leather. They took the peanut packing foam. They took the penultimate line. They took the pirate costume. They took the plastic daisy. They took the plumping lip liner. They took the poet and the child. They took the polaroid photo. They took the pulp factory. They took the puppy piddle pad. They took the pyramid scheme. They took the red wheelbarrow. They took the remote control. They took the resolution. They took the roll of fax paper. They took the rotary desk phone. They took the rules. They took the scrapbooking scissors. They took the second-hand upholstery fabric. They took the sink, the old toilet. They took the smell of exhaust. They took the smell of the fake christmas tree. They took the snake-bite kit. They took the sock monkey. They took the sonar. They took the space heater. They took the spongebob squarepants hat. They took the stand-up brooke shields sign. They took the sugar glider. They took the tackle box. They took the tapestry. They took the thermal underwear. They took the thermostat. They took the tie rack. They took the toast after they made toast. They took the toaster. They took the toddler kitchen. They took the toothbrush sanitizer. They took the toxicology report. They took the tree stump carved like a bald eagle. They took the tune bolero. They took the united colors of benneton advertisement. They took the vintage record stand. They took the virginia slims carton. They took the wagon and the woman inside. They took the watermelon patch. They took the window-washing squeegee. They took the wingback chair. They took the wooden ironing board. They took the working bathtub, the working bicycle spoke, the working fondue pot, the working hamster ball, the working girdle strap, the working lava lamp, the working pipe organ. They took the x-axis. They took the yes-man. They took the zoonosis.

Process Notes

This is not at all what I set out to write. It’s still very much a draft, and I am working on making it stranger. The piece is for Nathan Moore, per our deal that everything we share in the issue is written to, for or with the other issue curator. But it’s also for Emily Van Duyne. It’s about her breasts, or her breast, anyway, since everything in the poem appears in the singular.

Please leave narratives in the comments section.