august crush by richard siken 2022

When I first read this poetry collection, somewhere at the start of this summer, I immediately knew I must do something (anything) with it. I stumbled across crush (the title of the publication) by finding a littany in which certain things are crossed out. Which I found the way you stumble across odd internet pages, ineffably.

Richard Siken's work is often so visual, visceral and escapist, filled with imagery I wanted to depict. The littany is still my favourite of his, but works much better as an auditory piece. I wanted to do something transformative with the whole body of work, so here we are.

• I started with the idea of making a graphic novel out of the first poem in the collection, but got blocked by my own brain and hands. So I switched to first finishing the illustration of the first quote "tell me about the dream, where we pull bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again".

• I decided to dedicate an empty wall space to this mote, so I printed out and sticky note-d the pieces of crush that I wanted to use.

• I made graphics based on the lines of lake bodies and bright red apple days from scheherazade.

• I made a referential zelda illustration based on the first paragraph of a littany and this video essay by Jacob Geller about the canonical reincarnation nature of the franchise.

• I made a graphic based on the lines about history in little beast.

• I also voiced and recorded the littany in the way I read it.

I realised I struggle a lot with making definitive choices when it comes to color, and also how I like to use (a)symmetry within the graphical designs. I would like to focus more on non-centered composition in the future and do more with fonts (the one I am continuously using throughout is based on my own handwriting! the bigger block letters are drawn by hand).