Mine or yours or ours?

I've nurtured a love-hate relationship with found poetry for a long while now, so it was quite surprising when I found myself writing a found poetry series. Even more unusual was that I felt, from the very beginning, 100% certain that I was going to use that found poetry series as the foundation for a poetry/visual art installation. After our return to the States from the Southeast Asia trip in Jan2007, I knew almost immediately (even before the worship at PSR was planned) that I needed to write a poetry series based upon our trip. I even knew that I wanted to use the reflections that the trip participants had written -- use them as material from which the poems would be crafted.

All this knowing wasn't really "knowing," though. Much like how we intuit our way around a dark room, I was intuiting my way through this process of writing found poems. I resisted the urge for such a long while because, deep down inside, I've always felt the poems would not really be my poems, that they would always be Person X's poems. When we think of craft and aesthetics, when we think of subjects, how can we say that culling a poem (fully sprung or not) from some other text qualifies as writing poetry from the depths of our felt experience?

What I realized, however, as I moved through revision after revision, was that the poems are my own. They are completely different from the very first version that included the original texts. The sense of the poem, the heart-essence of the poem, even the rhythm and feel of the poem are all new and special and unique. I feel thoroughly justified, satisfied, and fulfilled in calling them my own for they are so different in manifestation and forms that I can hardly recognize them.

When writing about craft, I'll have to be more precise. For the time being, I can only say I am learning to live with the poems as they are... whether found or unfound.

art is work

since i graduated from college, i have spent very little time overall making art in long stretches. i forgot how hard it is. yes it is a joy, yes it is where life comes form for me, but it is work.

having spent so much time talking about this project, thinking through this project, putting paintbrush to paper (or shoes in this instance) is surprisingly hard for me. it is not for lack of a plan, lack of content, lack of inspiration. i feel full of all of these things. i think it is fear. fear of such public work. fear of the authority i will be given as an artist. fear of how people will listen when i give workshops on this. fear that i won't like my own work.

and yet, courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision that something is more important than fear.

this is more important than fear. art is more important than fear.

unFound's poetic muse

Before there was the image, unFound began first with the word. No, not Logos, per se, but the poetic word. The inspiration for the poems in the crown series that forms the basis for the poetry/visual art installation came from the reflections/meditations that were written by various members of the 15 Gang that traveled to Southeast Asia. The writings were collected, permission acquired from the authors, and the crafting began. The transformation from prose to poetry was arduous and still is arduous, but the process exemplifies the heart of a line I've drawn from a poem I read a while back:

Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?

Even though we were working with found poetry, the heart, the essence of the poems needed to be articulated in different ways - ways much more complex than the stringing together of words in discombobulated sentences could attest to.

Each poem manifested itself in distinct form, with varying depths and colors, with differing points of access.

At first, the poems came together in large chunks that tried to capture the meaning of the prose reflections. At Turn #1, the poems began to morph and shift to express their own sensibilities. At Turn #4, the series began to show itself as a cohesiveness series. In its sixth iteration, the series is looking much, much stronger with a more solid foundation.

I've been vary pleased with the progression these poems have made. I hope you'll be able to continue traveling with us to see the poems in their current manifestations.

If you're ever lost, find yourself at unFound: unfound2008@gmail.com.

travelers wanted: you!

After our trip to Southeast Asia in Jan. 2007, each one of the travelers began thinking about ways of sharing our journeys and our discoveries with others. Some of us preached sermons, some blogged, some wrote poems, and some created visual art -- all this to recreate and deepen our experience of being immersed in multicultural experiences that have transformed our lives.

It became something of an obsession for me, HAT, which blossomed into ideas about writing a crown series of poetry. I collected some of the reflections written by fellow travelers and using them as material crafted a series of poems that expresses the myriad of encounters we experienced on-site. I engaged abbykk in the effort to render these meditations/reflections-turned-poetry as visual art. abbykk's artistic envisionings continue to change and transform, and the words-images are becoming, each day, more and more powerful re-interpretations (not exact, mind you) of the multitude of sights, sounds, and textures that we found on our journeys.

Countless meetings and discussions and emails have led us to this point, when we are able to proudly announce that we have exhibition dates (more details to come), we have a blog, we have email, we have the resources for funding (more forthcoming), and we have great hopes for whatever is ahead, for whatever we will find or unfind on our journey...

One definite resource we hope to find and keep is: you! If you are here reading this, you have already begun the expedition with us. We hope you will be curious enough to remain throughout the journey to find out what exactly we mean by "found" or "unfound".

We will offer you a mixed course of words and images that will shake things up and turn things around. We will question our assumptions and beliefs. We will overturn our misconceptions and interpretations. We will honor our cultures, flaws, and faiths. We will be bold. We will be humbled. We will be awed. We don't want to do this without you. But we will forge ahead. Unravel yourself enough to join us on this journey.

welcome

almost 18 months ago, a groups of seminarians, professors and staff got on a plane to hong kong. we did not know what would come of it, and certainly had no idea we would be writing this blog, this many months later.

we hopped on and off planes, trains, and buses for fourteen days as we made our way from hong kong to singapore, through malaysia to kuala lumpur and finally to vietnam. along the way, we visited churches, temples, and mosques, we met priests, seminarians, professors and students, we sang on sunday morning in a methodist church, we made fools of ourselves in the street over the taste of durian, and mastered the art of crossing the street. but these were the simply the details of something that was much more than the sum of its parts.

we went far from home, and found and unfound ourselves, over and over and over again. we encountered places and people that were new, but encountered ourselves anew as well.

when we returned home, those of us who took the trip as a class, for seminary credit, had to write papers--no surprise there. these reflections were a seed to an art creation that has been germinating ever since, and will flower this fall.

this blog will follow our current journey, grown out of our journey to and through southeast asia and ourselves, as we create art, and bring it to the public.

here you will find our reflections on this journey, as well as keep the details of upcoming exhibitions current.

we hope you will journey with us.