“The beat of the sounding body 1" was done with watercolors and ink on bamboo paper. I spread the paper on the floor and cast 18 wood blocks the size of dice on the surface. I marked the location of each block and used those markings (numbered 1-18) to determine where to write the 18 poems (or 18 stanzas). The writing was done with a Faber-Castell India Ink pen, with the orientation determined more or less by the angle of each block. On top of the writing, I used markers to draw arcs connecting every stanza with every other stanza, odds to the left using a purple marker and evens to the right using green. I used watercolors to highlight a pattern that emerged at the intersection of those lines drawing on the tradition(s) of madonna and child icons. I find the description of what Maria/Miriam did (used as an epigraph in the printed poem) intriguing. She was an unwed mother, probably fifteen years old, probably scared to death (for good reason) about what people were going to think of her and do to her – and the writer says she put all the stuff that had happened to her in her head and dwelt on it. I think that taking it all in and dwelling on it has a lot in common with Joyce's here comes everybody approach to the world.

click here for the poem and a link to a video done in collaboration with Charlie Newman and Regina Schroeder