Stop. Reverse. Begin again, from the beginning. The fifth in a
string of pearls, but this is the one that lives in the sky. An
overview of it all, an
introduction.
[I've taken
classes at MCBA before: binding to letterpress to platen press to
layout. I've decided to restart, with the idea of a
core certificate in mind. Maybe one day a
mentorship. Right now, their poet is my girl
M.]
These
twin mounds of cotton remind me of lungs. So soft, like little
lambs. Sarah passes them around: abaca, flax, cotton, papers made at
various lengths of beater times.
We apron. We rubber boot. I fantasize about
Wellies. I think of puddles and yellow ducks.
We watch the abaca get beat. A open-top funnel. A fiber in rotational pull.
We
learn the discarded has a home here: peanut butter jars let us examine
the density of fiber. She holds it to the light and the abaca worms
there.
What makes a good fiber? Cotton, linen, bamboo.
Sarah
tells us of how she blistered her fingers cutting jeans into
appropriate pieces. These are pancakes. I will show you three more.
What
does not make a good fiber? Wool. Wool, when agitated, becomes felt.
It does not sift but binds to itself. Plants can be integrated.
Cellulose is key.
The
pulp must be pinched slowly, dropped into the water. One pound of dry
weight; add water to the fill line. (Imagine it.) Drain with a bucket
and strainer.
The
yogurt cup is another essential throw-away. Scoop two cups slurry into
the vat. Stir with your hands. Reminds you of: high school art
class, pottery unit. (I couldn't keep my hands out of the ice cream
pails of slip.) All night, you could trail your hands in this water.
There
is the mould and the deckle. One sweeps the matching components into
the slurry, into the vat, and shimmies, as if panning for gold. I
twitch; my hands stutter. My paper is smoother, the twitchier I get. I
shake before rising. I learn the warp of the mould can crumple the
paper on the felt. I learn to not shift so violently, or the paper can
warp on the mould. I envy the mistakes of my classmates--the hills that
are declared cells, the lines that resemble veins. I think of my
(in)fertility poems, my patient-on-an-examining-table poems, my
definition-of-a-cyst poems. I would press them right next to those
throbbing, pulsing failures.
The
paper loses its shine as it dries. Here it is: wettest in its form. I
cannot help but make, over and over, the smaller size, the one that is
closest to the trade paperback. Others make the larger sheets, varying
according to whim. I am looking ahead, though to what, I do not know.
There
is also pigmentation. Sarah tests the water; the water should run
clear when the dye has been absorbed (one uses the slippery retention
agent for aid), but this dye is the pigment of her pigment. Declared
close enough, the cotton is called: salmon, dusty rose,
insulation-pink. I add: tangerine. I think of palms.
The
paper is pressed, boards and water. And after all of this, the best
system, besides the drying racks or the window pressings, is the
restraint dryer, which is little more than corrugated cardboard,
blotters, and a linted fan.
They
are there, sleeping. Peeled away from felt. In the basement of the
center for book arts, the security guard leaning over a newspaper.
Traffic has slowed outside; the sun is setting earlier and earlier every
day. Equinox has passed.
I
promised three pancakes. And there they are, free for students to
slurry again. Blue cotton, red cotton, white abaca. Patriotic.
Linger at the installation. Think of the moon. Your thoughts will batter tonight; you've been energized.