Where does this work belong?

As I write I am living in California and feel an urgency to use the expression “I’m stoked”!

So here it goes: I’m utterly stoked to be embarking on a collaborative poetry project titled correspondence.one, or c1, with my delightful Web3 friend and sister, Linda Dacey Laforge. 

In attempting to describe our project on Foundation, we realized we had to push some taxonomic boundaries! c1 is a poetic exchange in the form of letters, or possibly an exchange of poetic letters? Either way, one is tempted to call the genre epistolary, which is a literary work in the form of letters. However, the epistolary form generally falls under the heading of fictional work. While Linda and I grant each other all the poetic license in the world, our exchanges are very much grounded in our respective heart-centered realities, which would suggest that c1 is actually leaning heavily towards non-fiction...

Much of what I have to say in artistic terms happens on the bleeding edge of my subjective experience, i.e. non fiction, and the imaginal realm, which many might feel more comfortable labeling as fiction. I’ve always experienced the boundaries between “reality”, dreams and the imaginal realm to be quite porous. Over the past decade, the literary genre known as creative non-fiction has flourished and filled the artificial gaps created by categorical labels. Creative non-fiction is a malleable genre, which encompasses many sub-genres, ranging from the lyric essay to fictional autobiography. I haven’t seen correspondence in the form of letters in this new space, but why ever not: creative non-fiction certainly feels loose enough to house c1. 

While creative non-fiction embraces multimedia expression and champions ekphrastic poetry, there is another genre, which is not strictly literary, called transmedia. According to multiple sources which are evidently copying and pasting from the same ur source: transmedia is a style of storytelling that employs a number of complementary elements, such as video, text, photo, that can be experienced in a variety of contexts. This definition is possibly looser than thou but I dig it precisely for that reason!

We write what we might not say

As artists, and indeed as humans, we are all caught up in the exhausting production that is the Movie of Me. I wake up and I am the writer, the makeup artist, the stuntman, the actor, the director and the producer of the Story of Me. It’s fucking exhausting. And if you’re anything like me, you also have a limited attention span when it comes to the Story of Another. 

As Art lovers, we are interested in stories outside ourselves insofar as they resonate and/or reflect something previously unseen back to us. This is where rich multimedia pieces can be especially effective in conveying the human experience. And letters, perhaps above all, allow one to read between the lines, notice what is left unsaid, feel into the differences and similarities between the two correspondents. Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, to state the obvious, but also the letters of one’s deceased grandmother, very old letters I’ve purchased at flea markets here and there, letters to the Editor of obscure publications, letters written and never sent, responses to lonely hearts ads, etc. There is something incredibly poignant about personal correspondence of any kind.  

Letters are interesting because we so often write so much more than we might say, not necessarily in quantity but in depth and authenticity. Speaking only for myself, I feel that in a letter, it does not feel trite, or even presumptuous, to comment on someone’s archetypal energy; I would be far too self-conscious to do the same in person, say, over tea. Even in the time of instantaneous messaging, there is a spaciousness to correspondence that gives the author permission to share her experience unapologetically, without unnecessary artifice or precaution. There is a tacit understanding that not everything that is written requires an explicit response.

Energy doesn’t lie

And of course there is the voice! The multimedia facet of this particular project means that Linda and I have each heard the letters being read, not unlike at the cinema. There is an immediate quality of intimacy delivered through the voice. As someone who works with energy, I immediately pick up on Linda’s unique energy signature as I listen to her deliver words chosen just for me. I know Linda. I haven’t met her in this lifetime, but I know her.  

This project is a multi-layered gift. First, there is the gift of this nascent, yet timeless friendship: the simplicity of it, the knowing, the recognition, as it were. Secondly, almost absentmindedly, we are confronted with a correspondence which documents the very essence of what is possible when we leverage the power of connection facilitated by Web3. Finally, dare I say it? Yes, I dare, if nothing else because I’ve seldom been quite so sure: we are creating a collection of poems that will speak to other artists and humans, who like ourselves, have questioned why they were not a greater part of the conversation at large. The beauty of this project is that it reflects a profound conversation. Our conversation is the echo of myriad decentralized conversations. It captures an apocalyptic quality commingled with a fin-de-siècle ennui unique to this epoch, a love of language and all living things, a connection with the mystery, an inescapable sadness, a desire to dance and play and laugh until the end of time.

** **

Where does this work belong?

As I write I am living in California and feel an urgency to use the expression “I’m stoked”!

So here it goes: I’m utterly stoked to be embarking on a collaborative poetry project titled correspondence.one, or c1, with my delightful Web3 friend and sister, Linda Dacey Laforge. 

In attempting to describe our project on Foundation, we realized we had to push some taxonomic boundaries! c1 is a poetic exchange in the form of letters, or possibly an exchange of poetic letters? Either way, one is tempted to call the genre epistolary, which is a literary work in the form of letters. However, the epistolary form generally falls under the heading of fictional work. While Linda and I grant each other all the poetic license in the world, our exchanges are very much grounded in our respective heart-centered realities, which would suggest that c1 is actually leaning heavily towards non-fiction...

Much of what I have to say in artistic terms happens on the bleeding edge of my subjective experience, i.e. non fiction, and the imaginal realm, which many might feel more comfortable labeling as fiction. I’ve always experienced the boundaries between “reality”, dreams and the imaginal realm to be quite porous. Over the past decade, the literary genre known as creative non-fiction has flourished and filled the artificial gaps created by categorical labels. Creative non-fiction is a malleable genre, which encompasses many sub-genres, ranging from the lyric essay to fictional autobiography. I haven’t seen correspondence in the form of letters in this new space, but why ever not: creative non-fiction certainly feels loose enough to house c1. 

While creative non-fiction embraces multimedia expression and champions ekphrastic poetry, there is another genre, which is not strictly literary, called transmedia. According to multiple sources which are evidently copying and pasting from the same ur source: transmedia is a style of storytelling that employs a number of complementary elements, such as video, text, photo, that can be experienced in a variety of contexts. This definition is possibly looser than thou but I dig it precisely for that reason!

We write what we might not say

As artists, and indeed as humans, we are all caught up in the exhausting production that is the Movie of Me. I wake up and I am the writer, the makeup artist, the stuntman, the actor, the director and the producer of the Story of Me. It’s fucking exhausting. And if you’re anything like me, you also have a limited attention span when it comes to the Story of Another. 

As Art lovers, we are interested in stories outside ourselves insofar as they resonate and/or reflect something previously unseen back to us. This is where rich multimedia pieces can be especially effective in conveying the human experience. And letters, perhaps above all, allow one to read between the lines, notice what is left unsaid, feel into the differences and similarities between the two correspondents. Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, to state the obvious, but also the letters of one’s deceased grandmother, very old letters I’ve purchased at flea markets here and there, letters to the Editor of obscure publications, letters written and never sent, responses to lonely hearts ads, etc. There is something incredibly poignant about personal correspondence of any kind.  

Letters are interesting because we so often write so much more than we might say, not necessarily in quantity but in depth and authenticity. Speaking only for myself, I feel that in a letter, it does not feel trite, or even presumptuous, to comment on someone’s archetypal energy; I would be far too self-conscious to do the same in person, say, over tea. Even in the time of instantaneous messaging, there is a spaciousness to correspondence that gives the author permission to share her experience unapologetically, without unnecessary artifice or precaution. There is a tacit understanding that not everything that is written requires an explicit response.

Energy doesn’t lie

And of course there is the voice! The multimedia facet of this particular project means that Linda and I have each heard the letters being read, not unlike at the cinema. There is an immediate quality of intimacy delivered through the voice. As someone who works with energy, I immediately pick up on Linda’s unique energy signature as I listen to her deliver words chosen just for me. I know Linda. I haven’t met her in this lifetime, but I know her.  

This project is a multi-layered gift. First, there is the gift of this nascent, yet timeless friendship: the simplicity of it, the knowing, the recognition, as it were. Secondly, almost absentmindedly, we are confronted with a correspondence which documents the very essence of what is possible when we leverage the power of connection facilitated by Web3. Finally, dare I say it? Yes, I dare, if nothing else because I’ve seldom been quite so sure: we are creating a collection of poems that will speak to other artists and humans, who like ourselves, have questioned why they were not a greater part of the conversation at large. The beauty of this project is that it reflects a profound conversation. Our conversation is the echo of myriad decentralized conversations. It captures an apocalyptic quality commingled with a fin-de-siècle ennui unique to this epoch, a love of language and all living things, a connection with the mystery, an inescapable sadness, a desire to dance and play and laugh until the end of time.

** **