The Unauthorized Audubon

Introduction

ix Introduction Poetry and relief printmaking are different artistic media. They use different tools. They appeal to different senses. They attract different audiences. Yet bringing these two creative forms together has expanded our ability to appreciate them both. We have found that despite their apparent differences, poetry and printmaking have much in common. Line and mass are critical elements for establishing the rhythm and structure of a poem. They are just as central to the composition and balance of a print. Repetition and high contrast are design principles often used to create a sense of power or conflict in a print. They are equally meaningful when used to create focus or tension within a poem. Likewise, metaphors—giving familiar ideas altered contexts and relationships—allow both poetry and printmaking to challenge the world as we know it and to move us into new places of reflection and discovery. By comparing and contrasting the many ways that values and voices (not only human voices) can be expressed through poetic language and graphic image, we have brought together two ways of thinking and understanding ourselves, each other, and the magical world of wings. Working through the linguistic complexities of a sestina, the mystery of an imagist poem, or the simplicity of a haiku is not unlike graphically representing the vastness of a wide-mouth bass, the nuance of an orange, or the social criticism embodied in a cupcake. We learned all this by co-teaching a creative workshop in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. We also learned once the class was over that poems and prints continued to lift us, as do birds. The Unauthorized Audubon began with friendship and feathers: a new block print, an impulsive act, and a poem. You know how one gift leads to another. Soon there were flocks of words and fowl stanzas, block prints nesting in mailboxes, cooing in pockets, and skittering under doors. The birds in these prints have stories and lives and histories and big feet. Clearly they are remarkable creatures. As they flutter from imagination to reality, they sing out for appreciation of their unique personae. Someone had to introduce them to this world. We were chosen. Unlike Audubon, however, we are bringing new species to life, not documenting species on the brink of extinction. We are repopulating an avian imagination and the winged joy of possibility. Though you will not find the birds nesting in this collection in Birds of Michigan: A Field Guide, nor any other bird book, it is our hope that when you peer out at the winter maple in your backyard or glance up toward the electrical wires suspended above your head, you might just catch a glimpse of something unidentifiable, something flitting through memory or imagination—something you, too, can introduce to the world. Laura B. DeLind and Anita Skeen x 1 The UnaUThorized aUdUbon ...