A “crafternoon” session took place at Taylorsville Redwood Campus in the Markosian Library, where the Student Writing and Reading Center and poet laureate Brenda Sieczkowski prepped tables with scissors, glue, tape, ribbon, scrap paper and old magazines for the community to indulge in and create visual poetry.
The atmosphere started quiet and relaxed as people gathered supplies and began to create collages. Sieczkowski told people to rummage through the papers and old magazines, find what they wanted to use and experiment with the craft of visual poetry however they saw fit.
Cassian Minagro, a music major, said they enjoyed poetry because it helped with their lyricism while creating music.
“The best lyricists are also writers,” Minagro said, gluing words on paper to form their poem.
Minagro took a page from a book and blacked out parts to create a poem. They said that it turned out more personal than they expected, but they loved where it went. The original poem led them to create a word collage on scrap paper.
“It’s very easy to visualize,” said Minagro. “I think I just like the freedom of poetry. I like how it’s very artistic and also a very experienced [thing]. A poem can be bad, but good to you.”
Jamie Dwyer, instruction and liaison librarian, stopped by to support the SWRC. Her collage started after seeing an “open letter to any wife whose husband has been unfaithful” in an old magazine.
“[Seeing the open letter] then juxtaposed with all the images of perfect women [in the magazine] — I’m not sure yet [where it’s going], I’m just collecting,” said Dwyer while cutting out pieces from the magazine to add to her collage.
Sieczkowski mentioned that at another collage-making event, part of the joy of collaging is the conversations built around looking through old magazines and seeing the funny, weird, crazy things being published and helping each other find pieces for their work.
Beck Banza, a nursing major, said he uses poetry as a way to recharge from his studies.
“It’s good to help people, but it’s so draining, so art is a way to refill the tank.”
He said his visual work was inspired by a fragmented poem he read.
“I am not anxious, you are inattentive, we are in danger,” read Banza, explaining how he had been writing a lot about nature, and “how animals treat each other.”
While gathering supplies, he saw a photo of a bunny in the stack of papers and got the idea to base his collage on rabbits and their behavior inspired by the poem.
Overall, Sieczkowski said the event was “glorious chaos” seeing people come together and create visual poetry.
