I have chosen to revise an artists’ book that I created during my WRT 211 course in the Fall 2020 semester. Refer to the submenu for more links.

This project is a reflection of my time in the humanities at UNE. I have taken many different arts and writing classes, as well as courses such as Anthropology of Gender. In choosing to revise an artists’ book with a poem, I am representing the passions I have been able to explore through my courses here. I have been able to encourage my artistic side as well as develop and strengthen my writing skills, which I believe are shown through this project.

I chose this artists’ book for several different reasons. It felt politically resonant given the current legislative climate and action being taken against the LGBT+ community currently, and it was a project of passion that I greatly enjoyed making in my sophomore year. I wanted to update it to reflect my current identity, and to be a small piece of resistance against the laws falling into place.

I believe my poetry skills have been further developed in order to assist this project. I have spent my four years of undergraduate studies in writing intensive classes, and a few of these were poetry specific. I feel that along with my writing growth, my personal growth has helped with this as well- I am not the same person I was when I was early in college, and that has impacted the way I view the world and translate it into writing. I have accumulated more knowledge both about myself and about the world, and the ways in which we interact. I think my revision of the artists’ book shows my personal growth well.

Something I believe helps illustrate this is my leaning into doing the art myself. For my original book, I used pre-designed paper, stencils, and printed images to create the design around my handwriting, but with the revised version, I printed the paper myself, hand drew the designs, and used no stencils or outside images other than what I drew. The words have also changed, naturally, as I have changed, but I personally believe that the revised poem rings far more impactfully than the original.