I live here - Montreal
Photograph by Matthew J. James
Installation view: The used wooden poem
Here we have a used wooden poem. This poem reads, " Call handyman, become handyman.". The punctuation is important! When I explained the poem in my weirdo performance in the Rhubarb performance festival of 2011, I included the punctuation.
So it sounds like this, " Call handyman comma, become handyman period." This poem is designed to be moved. The wooden letters in flux knock together and make the kind of sounds that remind me of something I can't quite name and I begin to feel both excited and nostalgic, bittersweet.
The poem is about self-sufficiency. The Montreal painter David Elliott thought that I was talking about masturbation, which is an interesting take, because it turns out that the term handyman in blues music can mean a lover. However, in truth I was talking about the spirit of DIY and being resourceful and inventive. Uh huh amen.
