Poetry Diagrams
by Jessy Randall & David M. Shapiro
We had been collaborating on text-only poems for several years when we decided we wanted to do something incorporating images in some way. We came across a 1976 publication in a library discard bin, Raymond Bruman’s Exploratorium Cookbook: A Construction Manual for Exploratorium Exhibits.
Our method of adapting the diagrams was convoluted and not well-thought-out: we scanned the original diagrams, erased the original labels using PowerPoint, and then made our own labels by sending the diagrams back and forth as email attachments. When we decided a diagram was complete, we converted it to a PDF using yet another program or programs. Our unstated goal became, perhaps, to create unfollowable instructions, impractical diagrams that could produce only thoughts and questions, not workable machines or displays. We have permission to use the diagrams as long as they appear with this statement: Diagrams by Raymond Bruman, adapted with permission, © Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu
Jessy Randall and Daniel M. Shapiro have known each other since they were eleven. Their collaborations have appeared in Many Mountains Moving, McSweeney’s, and Painted Bride Quarterly. Their latest books are How the Potato Chip was Invented (Dan, sunnyoutside), Injecting Dreams Into Cows (Jessy, Red Hen), and Interruptions (both, Pecan Grove).
Originally appeared in the online supplement to the Beyond Category issue 43.2-44.1