TMQ at Spring Writes Literary Festival in Ithaca, NY

The Metamer Quarterly is on the road again, headed to Ithaca, NY, on Sunday, May 5th, to lead a workshop with Kate Blackwood, frequent contributor and collaborator.

11:00am - 12:00pm @ Tompkins Center for History & Culture, 2nd Floor Conference Room **

Workshop: Book + Art: Make a book and write a poem to go inside

A workshop for those who love to write and make things. Write an original poem or flash story following an in-workshop prompt, or revise a piece of writing you've already started. Then make a book using one of three simple techniques. Formats will be appropriate for beginners, but interesting enough for pros! The final step is to place your writing in your book and take it with you: a new, complete piece of literary art. It's a done-in-a-day version of the artist's book project The Metamer Quarterly lead by the Metamer's founder, artist Lara Scott, and a frequent contributor, writer Kate Blackwood. All book-making materials will be provided. You just bring the words. (**For workshops in the 2nd floor conference room, we ask that you arrive a few minutes early to ensure we have enough seating for all participants!)


More information here:
http://artspartner.org/content/view/spring-writes

a note about our location:
Tompkins Center for History and Culture, 110 N. Tioga Street. This is on the Commons, to the left of M&T Bank. There will be signs as you enter the building pointing you to the Gallery/Program Room and the elevator to the 2nd Floor Conference Room. 

Issue #8 of The Metamer Quarterly

Issue #8 ships soon. And Issue #9 will follow shortly after. For more information, please email Lara Scott at metamer@protonmail.com

or drop me a snail mail line -- send to

The Metamer Quarterly
PO Box 725
Sherburne NY 13460

No Subject, printed 2018

Printed copies of Issue #6 just arrived. Adding covers. Will ship in the next week.

deadline extended!

Those who have ever made an appointment to meet up with me knows that I am almost always late. Even notoriously late folks become prompt in my presence, in deference to my superior tardiness. So who am I to stick to a deadline, or to rigidly enforce it?

So, there is still time to send in a submission -- a diagram of a soccer play, or a hockey play, or the batting list from your last best game, or a poem, or a shopping list, or a drawing, or a cartoon, a comic, anything that can be printed in b&w -- for Issue #6 of The Metamer Quarterly.

Send it to me, Lara Scott, at P.O. Box 725, Sherburne, NY, 13460, by Feb 10th.

Please do!

And here's a glamour shot of issue #5,

and a line from Carrie Newcomer:

"The curious promise of limited time."

No Subject

Issue #5, Time, has shipped.

Five issues complete, and three more to go. Whether The Metamer Quarterly will continue for a third year, I do not yet know.

I've been requesting submissions for Issue #6, No Subject. Anyone can send something in. I guarantee that I will put at least one of your works, whether a b&w drawing, or a piece of writing, in the issue. If you send more, I might include more, depending on the final portfolio of material.

Can you submit anonymously, in the event that you are worried about preserving your professional reputation in another area? Absolutely. Can you publish under your full name, because you would like to add to your publishing record? Again, yes!

Please send your submissions to the usual address (see below); handwritten is fine.

L Scott / The Metamer Quarterly
P.O. Box 725
Sherburne, NY, 13460

Please send by February 5th.

Need some prompts? See below:

1. Write an acrostic on any of the five previous subjects of The Metamer Quarterly. (Metamerism, Maps and Diagrams, the Book of Love, The Sea, or Time) An acrostic is a form "in which the first letter of each line makes a word or message that relates in some way to the poem's subject." (Michael Ann Courtney)

2. Three stanzas that can be sung to the tune of Amazing Grace. Or the theme to Gilligan's Island. Each stanza must contain one of the following words: fjord, platonic, tympanum, bower, telos, widdershins, buoy, loupe, quark, haver, soothe

3. A haiku containing at least two words from the list above.

4. Write a poem of 18 to 32 lines about a family member who meets a famous person. (this exercise stolen from MAC, who stole it from David Wojahn.)

5. An Then / Now poem. 4 to 8 lines, in pairs that begin:

"I used to......
But now I ....."

An alternate version:

"I used to be like....
But now I am...."

6. Draw a map of the dark side of the moon.

7. Diagram any sentence in this post.

8. Draw a picture illustrating or prompted by any three or more words from list above.

9. Submit a brief news report on anything that happened to you in 2017.

10. Draw a map of how to get from where you lived when you were seven, to where you live now.

11. Explain the theory of relativity.

12. List the five most important questions to ask when purchasing a mode of transport.

time it was and what a time it was it was

photograph by Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925-1972), an optician and photographer, who lived and worked in Northern Kentucky.  He is a hero of mine.

Time has a deadline

October 16, 2017

Issue #5, Time, has a deadline.

The Metamer Quarterly's New Year has begun. Time is the first issue of Year #2, and will ship on Dec 22.

If you would like a copy, please send your check for $95 by October 30th.

For Year Two, if you would like 2 of the 4 issues, the cost is $ 170. For three issues, the cost is $ 255. For all four, it is $ 340. Please do tell me which issues you want!

Please send checks to PO Box 725, Sherburne, NY 13460

Perks are still shipping; I will just keep plugging away until everyone has gotten their items. Thank you again for your patience.

As I did in Year One, I will post images of the process, and of the final issues. I plan to make several extra copies of each issue, and those will be available, first come, first served, after the ship date of each issue.

Year One, The Sea has shipped

The autumn equinox is past, and The Sea is on its way to the last few subscribers. One Year of The Metamer Quarterly is complete.

The Sea includes wool yarn that was handspun and dyed by Cris Amann, a local artist and craftsperson who makes the most amazing things. And yarn. The wool comes from her friend's sheep.

string, shells, ribbon, and rocks

Except for a book that is going abroad, and a book who keeps crossing paths with its recipient, the Book of Love is now in the hands of all subscribers. 

And, for the next issue, if you would like to add something to The Sea, it needs to be in multiples of 15, sent to the address below. Meaning, I will add it by literally adding it. 

TMQ
P.O. Box 725
Sherburne NY 13460

a good word from a plutocrat

a plutocrat on how to be a good citizen

how is this related to The Metamer Quarterly? Loosely, I'll admit. When I chose the topics for the eight planned issues of TMQ -- Metamerism, Maps & Diagrams, The Book of Love, The Sea, Time, <no subject>, The Cabin and the Stone House, and Sound -- I left out some of my usual preoccupations. Not because they don't interest me, but because they interest me in a "boots on the ground" way, not in a more reflective, poetic way.

I regularly get on a soapbox about feminism, race, color, and class. Economic inequality and the infuriating distortion in wages, where some of the most necessary jobs are paid the least, while many of the least important to society's orderly functioning are compensated outrageously, is another common rant of mine.

This essay from Nick Hanauer says it well. And it is pragmatic. Because really, one is only philosophical about poverty when one has plenty. Our problem, nationwide, is not supply. It is distribution and will. We don't lack food, or capacity to provide good education, access to decent healthcare, stable and well-maintained housing. The people in power, including those with the most economic power, do not yet have the will to make changes. Hanauer states the obvious -- to avoid actual war, make the changes that will actually lift all boats.

"Once we’ve dismissed with trickle-down nonsense, the way forward becomes clear. I’ll save a detailed policy agenda for another forum, but there’s no getting around the trillion-dollar elephant in the room: the 5 percent of GDP that used to go to wages but now goes to executive pay and record corporate profits. This isn’t money we’re shipping overseas or feeding to robots or burying in holes. The most obvious way to address our crisis of growing inequality is to reverse the policies that undermined the older, more equitable norms. This means raising the minimum wage and the overtime threshold to their inflation-adjusted peaks, and indexing them to the appropriate economic metric. This means restricting the stock buybacks that have propped up executive pay through share price manipulation. This means rethinking our benefits systems and social safety nets to meet the needs of our modern economy. And this means substantially raising taxes on plutocrats like us who continue to capture the bulk of our nation’s economic gains. And yes, by all means let’s increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, even though it effectively socializes the cost of wages onto taxpayers. But keep in mind: the EITC currently costs $60 billion’ish per year. If we want to fill the trillion dollar per year hole in workers’ pockets, we’d need to raise it by about $940 billion per year."

I tell you, the relationship is its own reward

More pages from The Book of Love.

Various front and back covers, and first pages

I've capped the edition at 35. Fourteen are out in the world, either waiting patiently on the living room coffee table, or already winging their way to their proper owners. If you would like one of your own, there are 21 available. The cost is $110; international orders are $150. For a custom made box to store it in, add $45. Please write to me (Lara Scott) at The Metamer Quarterly, P.O. Box 725, Sherburne, NY, 13460.