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“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)
For the last two years, I have made an altered book using poems I have written beside my students. An altered book is a hardback book that has outlived its time, been discarded from the library, or left behind at Goodwill. I usually try to find ones with fairly large pages that are sewn, not glued, to the binding. I take out some of the pages and glue a few together to thicken each page and create space. Then I use Gesso and paint to cover the pages. My students have the option to make an altered book for their poetry project.
Here are a few of my favorite pages from my book this year. Vannisa found the sign, “Keep Calm and Write Poetry” that became my front cover. The marbleized paper was made using a technique with chalk and water. I covered some of my pages with gelli-printed papers. When I work on my altered book, I enter Flow, a term Csikszentmihalyi used to describe that zone of creativity one enters when something is at the right level of challenge. Flow is energizing and motivating.
Altered book cover
Page one begins with A for anaphora
Making a collage of printed paper makes an interesting background.
Images fuel my writing.
What a terrific idea, Margaret. I want to learn more and see more. I love this. About how many poems do you have in your book?
Janet, I had to go back and count. There are 16. In April, we write a poem a day with the ABCs of poetry forms. I never make it all through the alphabet. This year we only made it to P.
Wonderful idea and beautiful product. Can’t wait to try it myself.
This is beautiful, Margaret. And I love the Rilke poem. I was just reading the poem myself in the past week and thinking about its applications in my life. You do such wonderfully creative things with children.
Beautifully done, Margaret, what a lovely idea. I usually just put my poems in our combined anthology, but this is an idea I’ll share too. Altered books are just wonderful projects.
Beautiful Margaret. You are so creative!
Love this. I want to learn how!
Absolutely GORGEOUS! I read Flow while getting my gifted endorsement. I love that concept. I can see how you can achieve flow while creating that beautiful book. You continue to inspire me! 🙂
What a lovely thing to create! I’m tagging this for future reference, Margaret!
Beautiful and inspiring, Margaret. I would love to do something like this.