As I looked at the chairs, I kept wanting to put books on them--perhaps because I'm a writer and, for the moment, I placed the chairs on a bookshelf. At first, I thought to purchase miniature books but then decided I should try to make some. I determined that the books should be sized up to 2" x 2". Then I looked around the house and found a college application brochure from University of New Mexico (who'd recently visited my son's school). Its cover was a good cardboard stock so I cut out a section to be used as a book cover:
I sized it and folded it to see what the back and front covers would look like:
As you see, on this size of a book, a single staple can work as the "binding":
I was going to cut the papers to create conventional pages. But I kept looking at the folded strip of paper and liked the effect. So I decided to keep it as is to create an "accordion"-page book:
This is what it looked like when the pages were folded. It was ready, just waiting for me to write in my text.
Given the "found" cover, I decided to title the book, IF A CACTUS BLOOMS. Here's the front cover:
and I would come to write
If the most prickly cactus
can bloom
origins can be questioned
but published with illustrations (also cut from the university brochure and then pasted on the pages) as follows:
As for the book? Here 'tis currently -- and moithinks cheerfully! -- "shelved" on one of the miniature chairs, ready to be picked up by a faerie or two and read by the window:
(You can click on all of the pictures for a larger image, if you wish.)
As ever, HAPPY READING!
*****
POETICS NOTE:
As you can see, IF A CACTUS BLOOMS, was created based on the poet's environment at the time. The process reflects "Lucidity Poetics": One doesn't need to imagine poetry. Simply be present. Observe. Poetry is all around us and the Poet's task is to see.
