NEW BOOK: RECONTEXTUALIZING GODIVA FOR FUN!

The hubby gave me a box of Godiva chocolates for the holiday.  So I polished it all off ... which is to say, I ended up with an empty Godiva box.  This is what the box looked like:

Since it was empty, it was about to be recyled when the Muse paused my hand.  I looked at the box again, considered how the brown ribbon ties together the flap of the box, and coaxed out a lightbulb to turn on over moi head.  To wit, I cut up the box:

I cut out of it the cardboard section with the two holes through which the brown ribbon had been threaded.  I reconfigured them to create the covers to a tiny book, with Godiva being the title:

Here is the back cover where the knot is tied. 

I suppose I could have cut the brown ribbon after tying the knot but I liked the brown ribbon.  So, at first, I thought I'd use the ribbon to tie around the book when it'd be time to shelve it, as in certain days of old:

But that looked a little messy to me.  Fortunately, I found out a way to neaten it up, so that the front would look like this when it's closed:

Then you'd undo the ribbon clasps to begin reading it:

But what's in the book?  Well, here's the title page -- do note that the word "GODIVA" is broken up to be "GO / DIVA" for the word play:

Please appreciate the teensy "French Flaps" (printer's term, y'all) on the book cover!  Anyhoo: so, "Go/Diva" and it goes on to say 

So what we've got so far is "Go/Diva goes down amicably with ..."  Well, being a wine-lover, I know from experience that chocolate and red wine go well together!  So I looked around to see if there was anything I could use to make my point.  I noticed a Great Courses brochure on the table where I was working:

After opening it and thumbing through it, I noticed that one of the books it was pitching was The Everyday Guide to Wines of Italy

So I cut up the illustration to the book on Italian wines and came up with the last two pages for my mini book as:

Thus, my book's complete text is "Go/Diva goes down amicably with Bacchus" and then the illustration of the red wine bottle and glass.  Not particularly deep, you think?  Perhaps you're right.  But some visual poetry please -- do note the way "Bacchus" was presented on the page.  It wasn't just the name "Bacchus" but had its last two letters rejiggered to look like:

In other words, there is an emphasis on "US."

Form, then, is content (as that poetry saying goes): Wine is often best enjoyed with good company.  So both chocolate and a diva would "go down amicably" with not just wine but amicable company. 

Of course there's generally a visual-poetry component to how the words are laid out.  For instance, "goes down" is presented as not written horizontally but (going down) vertically.

Okay, this all may not be so deep.  But what do you expect from five pages, each sized 0.75 inches by 2 inches? 

And such is moi explication on the mini book for the day.  I must now go and enjoy some time with BacchUS doing you-know-what.  In fact, if you do the same and, after emptying a bottle, return to this blog post and read my book's text again, you might think I wrote something deep after all.  Which would achieve my goal for this mini-book:  FUN!  I mean,

F

U

N

!

*****

By the way, Go/Diva, just like my first book for SitWithMoi, If A Cactus Blooms, represent what I think of as "Lucidity Poetics."  That is, I don't believe one needs to create something or imagine something anew to write a poem.  I believe poetry exists all around us and, at times, the poet's task is simply to be lucid and proactive enough by being present in order to see.

Now, where shall this book sit?  Why not here on one of Mary Scheller's chairs!