Fortner Anderson / Demotic Locutions Press
Hello, my name is Fortner Anderson, and welcome to my virtual stall at the artspace 2022 book fair. Here, you’ll find my recent book projects. All of my projects take a different physical and conceptual form. For example, "Considerations" takes the form of a golden-age comic book, printed on real newsprint. "Points of Departure" is a book encased in bronze. "Reiterations'' which will be released this spring is an e-publication whose content changes with each reading. Each of these books is the culmination of a poetic project which grew out of my ideas about contemporary poetry. Enjoy the fair!
Considerations
Published in the format of a golden-age comic book, “Considerations” was composed using several constraints. Each of its 1000 sentences contains a single verb. These verbs are the 1000 most commonly used in English. Each sentence begins with the words “Once I” plus the past form of the verb. To this phrase a personal memory is added.
For example: “Once I knew all the state capitals and the names of 36 presidents. Once I saw on fishing trip to the Lake of the Woods, on my first visit to Canada with my mother, my brother and my stepfather, an impossibly large musky in the murky water beneath our canoe. Once I looked for solutions, fruitlessly.” One long rainy afternoon, you can watch a reading of the entire text using the link below.
Book layout and typography: Fabrizio Gilardino
Cover illustration and design: Paolo Ruini
Points of Departure
Each day for a period of one-year, from February 11th, 2010 to February 10th, 2011, I attempted to compose a poem for the project “Points of Departure.” Published by small perturbations press, “Points of Departure” contains 365 pages, one for each day of the year-long project. Within the book are 256 completed poems and 109 blank pages indicating the days I wasn't successful. The poems in the book have been presented in a series of 12 hour and 10 minute performances. During the uninterrupted reading, every two minutes, I read a day’s entry. For each day for which there was no completed poem I remain silent for a two-minute period.
Only 50 copies of "Points of Departures" exist. After each reading I sign and number my reading copies. Each of these copies is subsequently encased in bronze. When all 50 copies of the book have been encased in bronze, the project will be complete and no other copies of poems will exist.
annunciations
"annunciations" contains three long poems. Each poem is a poetic reinterpretation of another text. “Belly into fire” is a re-reading of the "Colombia Crew Survival Investigation Report," published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Every Sunday” is based upon the "Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change. Lastly, the poem, “Amazing,” reinterprets the "Joint Task Force Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta, published by the United States Department of Defense."
These texts were recorded and the recordings were given to nine electro-acoustic composers. Listen to Alessandro Bossetti's interpretation of "Amazing" in the link below. The book was published with a 3-CD set including the 9 recordings, and a deluxe box set which includes the poems printed on paper discs in the form of a vinyl record.
