Pondering a book

 I have settled into some of the routines and rhythms of working in my new spaces. I have remembered where things are kept; I have recalled the things I wanted to try; and I have re-stocked my cards. And so it feels like it might be time to start doing some slightly more serious, or challenging or larger work.

Although of course, I still have to label everything but maybe that's a rainy day thing.

There is a beautiful, boutique artists' book exhibition held in Maleny each year now, in association with the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Writers Festival. It is called Narratives and this years theme is A Constellation of Stories, aligned with the Festival's theme.

I wondered about books about the night sky; about our southern hemisphere constellations. But also, I wanted to re-work, re-use and re-imagine some bird and nest words.

Apart from the astronomical and astrological definitions, Dictionary me offered me this:

Constellation

Noun

a group or configuration of ideas, feelings, characteristics, objects, etc., that are related in some way

any brilliant, outstanding group or assemblage

And within this definition I think I have found that I might have a place for a collection of poems about nests.  

My very early ponderings are part of this post here.

I have progressed slowly. After lots of thinking I have decided to cut the five pages into 5 smaller pages each. I know I have five poems with three lines each, so I need 15 pages and a title page and a colophon page, so that will give me some breathing space for trials and tests and blunders.

I wanted to check that if I chose to write with the typewriter, I knew how long the lines would be. So I typed them all up and stuck this trio onto some blank paper.

And then checked the haiku poem going this way...

and that...

All good so far. Next step was to check if the small pages would roll through the typewriter. And the answer was definitively "not on your nelly!". So then I had a problem. I played about with the rollers and feeds and tried to coerce the small page to roll through, all to no avail. So I tried a weird thing of hand feeding it into the side front of the roller and sliding it along to the left, then holding it down with the gripper (as best I could)...

I had to draw a line on the page to try and line up in a similar place on each page; and I marked a dot1cm in from the left so they all started at the same point. And I had to line that dot up with where the first key stroke would (might) land.

And then I could start to type; although the fact the 1cm in part didn't give enough distance for the left front clear guard to hold the page equally with the right meant that they all started  off a bit wobbly.

By the time I got a few words in, the guards were both holding the paper and things went a lot more smoothly. I couldn't change the 1cm margin, because if I made it further in, say 2.5cm, then the longest lines of the poem wouldn't fit, so wobbly won.

A very apt line for all the progress I made!