Collage is well-suited to a series about poets. My collage practice is about the idea of the chance encounter, the wonder of the ordinary, and the surprise of juxtaposition. It involves discarded ephemera, allusions, connections, patterns, symbols, clarity, and obscurity. The collage is a poem in itself, a cypher of meaning. In the words of T. S. Eliot, “a genuine poem can communicate before it is understood.”

The rough, irregular outline of the head alludes to the shifting border between the internal and external world in which the poet finds themselves. There is an interplay between transparency and opacity. It is in that interplay where meaning lies.

This is my own idiosyncratic choice of poets. Some I have loved for many years, like Robert Desnos and Emily Dickinson; others are discoveries like Wallace Stevens. The Portait of the Poet series was awarded a Bronze for collage series in the 2024 Contemporary Collage competition.