The Vispo Bible: Matthew 8, 9 and 10 in Train : journal of concrete poetry

thanks to DW Adams for including three chapters from the Vispo Bible in Train. Another piece was also included on the blog http://trainpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2019/12/from-vispo-bible-matthew-27.html and DW was kind enough to interview me about my visual poetry and other things here.http://trainpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2020/01/an-interview-with-amanda-earl.html.

a hand made visual poem featured in Guest 8: Femmecraft

G U E S T 8 , the latest in the above/ground press chapbooks edited by guests is now out. https://guestpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/.

For this issue, the editors are the wonderful Kate Siklosi and Dani Spinosa, who sent out a call for femmecraft, hand made work. I loved this idea. I am pleased that my stoneware NO bowl is in the chapbook. You can pick up a copy through above/ground press, and you should...because there is intriguing work therein. My contribution is a handbuilt stoneware bowl in the form of a coil and the word “NO,” which I also made from stoneware. I was thinking about craft, which is often dismissed as "women’s work," as if that is somehow pejorative, and often not considered to be art. I was thinking about resistance to this idea and resistance to women’s empowerment and creativity. I thought the call represented a celebration of feminist resistance to patriarchal dismissal and suppression of the force and creativity of imagination.

This is one of four imperfect pieces I submitted for consideration. They are cracked and chipped and made wrong. When I first started to take pottery workshops in the 90s, my instructor told me my work was charmingly uneven. I replied that this was much like my character. I think handmade work can resist this insistence on perfection and therefore show evidence of tender humanity. As T.J. Burnett said, “Perfection is a second-rate idea.”

and here are the other pieces from the series: