tidalpoems

An interview with Mary Duke by Katrina Laura Ketchum

What is “tidalpoems?” 

tidalpoems is simple poetry made from various book titles. By stacking  books on top of each other in a purposeful way, the book piles can be read  as poetry. tidalpoems’ exists to create short, relatable poetry for people to  enjoy and to showcase the works of a variety of published works. Basically, this project hopes to inspire people through words. 

What is the inspiration behind this project? 

The idea for tidalpoems came one afternoon when I was lamenting over  schoolwork. I found myself lying on my carpet (procrastinating hard)  staring at my bookshelf. I read various titles and noticed how some seemed to fit together. I stacked a few books on my desk, and before I  knew it, I made a little poem. Since making my own personal discovery of  book title poetry, I’ve stumbled across other awesome book stackers. For  example, artist Nina Katchadouria started making book title poetry in  1993, a project she calls “Sorted Books.” It’s inspiring to see what other  people are doing. There are so many possibilities. There are a lot of books out there, folks.

Take us through your creative-process. How you decide which books  to stack? 

Creating tidalpoems, since it’s a relatively new thing for me, is a bit of  an evolving process. I first turned to my own bookshelf for titles that I  thought were cool. Since those resources have been exhausted, I’ve spent  many hours in the last month or so at the library. I’ll pace through the  aisles of books and jot town titles that catch my attention. When I have a long list written out, I will sit down and combine and rearrange some  of the titles until I’ve made a poem. Sometimes I get frustrated and go  home sulking and poemless. Sometimes I make a poem I like. In those cases,  I’ll check out those books and go home happy, with a heavy bag.

This literary art project relies a great deal on the photographic  image. How important is the visual representation of the poem to  the poem itself? 

I think the visual representation of the poems is a very important  component of tidalpoems. Books are beautiful. I find the aesthetic of  the book arrangements to be pretty little things all their own. There  is color and texture and details special to each book. It’s an accom plishment to solely capture all that good stuff. Katrina, since you have  recently started (so kindly) to help with the photography of tidalpoems,  you know how much attention and time has to go into this part of the  project. We’ll have to photograph a stack of books dozens of times until  it looks just right. There is often more text on the spine of a book than  just the title. It’s sometimes a challenge to get it all lined up correctly.  Taking the time to do it right is worth it though. tidalpoems wants to  shine the best light possible on the books it uses.

Is there a certain tidalpoem that you’re particularly fond of, per haps one that resonates with you, especially? 

I’m almost certain that my favorite one has yet to be stacked.

Can you give us a tiny hint on your newest upcoming tidalpoem?

You’ll love it if you have an intolerance to wheat.