Interscriptions

Hall, John (2011) Interscriptions. Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, UK. ISBN 9781907812576

Abstract / Summary

This sequence of image-texts with accompanying quatrains is an exploration of and through collaboration and also of and through the convergence of conventions of typographic and fine art practices. The collaboration is between two poets who also work visually: one (Hughes) whose two practices as painter and poet are kept relatively apart; the other (Hall), who also makes poems intended for the familiar space of a page and whose visual images are always produced on a computer and always either explicitly belong to the category of writing or have an obvious relation to its procedures and visual properties. The collaboration took the form of an electronic correspondence. An image-text was sent as a JPEG file by one collaborator to the other, who, without any discussion, responded by producing another text which transformed the first. The process continued until twenty exchanges had taken place, often taking this form of addition and transformation, though sometimes prompting a new tack. Only at the end did the two discuss what they had produced together. At that stage they decided to add quatrains to accompany each image. These were written separately by each poet to accompany the images for which they were the final author. The process of collaboration is discussed in ‘Two textual collaborations’, an essay included in Output 1. The sequence has also been printed as a set of prints that can be framed and has been shown in two exhibitions (see Output 3 and at PW10 at the Arnolfini, Bristol, in May 2010.); it has also been read with accompanying projection at poetry readings and festivals.

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