Sunday, August 14, 2011

MERGE: An Exhibition of Convergent Ideas




One of the upcoming projects that I am excited to be involved with is the Merge Phoenix Poetry Retrospective. Merge was a poetry journal that was published by Rosemarie Dombrowski, who also hosts a monthly reading series, which I was proud to feature at in December.

The journal has been on hiatus, so she decided to re-launch with a new issue filled with poets who featured at her readings during 2010. She also enlisted the help of Phoenix photographer Sean Deckert to design the cover and create images for about twenty of the poems inside.

Deckert also arranged for the launch party to be a gallery show during September's First Friday Artwalk:


Merge Poetry Retrospective



Merge Phoenix Poetry Retrospective
September 2nd-30th, 2011
opening reception: September 2nd, 6-10pm
closing reception: September 16th, 6-9pm
Artlink Heritage Square Gallery
623 East Adams Street
Phoenix, AZ 85003
This exhibition is a collection of hand written poetry combined with photographs made from an intuitive response to selected poems. The installation of the original art will create an interactive environment where viewers are enticed to have a more involved physical connection with the poetry and retrospective/current Merge community. Viewers are invited to remove poems and photographs from the gallery wall to read leisurely during the exhibition. There will be a poetry reading that will showcase the poem through the voice of the author. Limited edition copies of the journal will be for sale.

I'm not sure which other poets will be with me at the opening reception, but some of the poets who have work in the journal, include Jack Evans, David Chorlton, Josh Rathkamp, Cat Klotsche, Jed Allen, Mark Haunschild, Eric Wertheimer, Susan Vespoli, Cathy Cappozoli, Nadine Lockhart, Jefferson Carter, and Cynthia Hogue.




6 comments:

  1. I know!

    I can't wait to see the images that he will be pairing up with our poems.

    I will have to do a follow-up post, after the gallery exhibit.

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  2. Congratulations!
    Terrific concept. Please do give us a follow-up post.

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  3. The only thing that worries me is that the photographer thinks it would be a great idea to have his photographs displayed in the gallery along with our poems, so he would like handwritten copies of our poems to hang on the walls.

    I do love the idea of the poems being on display, instead of just buried in the pages of the journal...however, my handwriting is atrocious. It's a skill that I never had a mastery of, but years of email and computer text has allowed it to atrophy to an even more embarrassing state.

    I am strongly considering a ghostwriter.

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  4. I relate; my handwriting looks like something you'd find in The Son of Sam's notebook.

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  5. Now I am picturing a scrawl that's heavier than you accent, Barry.
    Awesome.

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