Red thread, two women
red thread, two women is a rhythmic, flowing, collaborative poem exploring human insight, discovery and personal growth. The book measures 8 x 8.5 x 2.5 inches in its slipcase and extends, when fully opened, to six feet. 36 pages. Edition of 38 copies. The poets, Paula Sager and Lizbeth Hamlin, are practioners and teachers of Authentic Movement, a practice that is concerned with the exploration of relationship. In its simplest form there is a mover and a witness. The mover, with eyes closed, waits for an impulse to move. The witness follows or tracks his or her own experience while being present and attentive to the mover.
The design of the book has been inspired by the poem and evokes the experience imbedded in the writing. The string/thread acts like a drawn line and can be moved around by the reader to change the drawing and the experience.
The reverse of the book uses images of beets, accentuating characteristics of the poem their string-like roots and the fullness and ripeness of their shape. The back pages also carry and emphasize individual words from the poem: voice, awaken, heart, distance, silence, tears, flame, breath, birth. From the afterword: It was this relationship of mover and witness that became, for us, the vehicle to explore questions about language, body and consciousness. What made the process even more intriguing was that we moved and witnessed in relationship to each other from a distance of 3,000 miles. . . .The process of moving and writing was completely dependent on our own individual sense of timing. Eventually, we came to realize that the emergence of the material seemed to have a momentum all its own.
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© 2008 Charles Hobson. All Rights Reserved