visual poetry – Fevers of the Mind

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Sarah-Jane

Q1: When did you start writing and whom influenced you the most now and currently?

Sarah-Jane: I’ve written illustrated stories and poetry as far back as I can remember. The first was about a family of rabbits – I was about four. It had no words but all the rabbits had different patterns on their trousers. My biggest influence is probably old-school poetry forums. I’m a bit wary of mentioning these as their workshopping can be very brutal, and hit-and-miss (you need a thick skin to survive and I wouldn’t recommend them for everyone) but places like Poetry Free For All were free and accessible resources for me when I was otherwise isolated, very short of money, and raising two small children.

Q2: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

Sarah-Jane: Yes! When a colleague at work talked about my ‘lack of creative practice’ as a put-down. I thought inwardly ‘I have got a creative practice’ and I started to look where I might submit work for possible publication.

Q3: Who has helped you most with writing and career?

Sarah-Jane: Besides the myriad people on old-school poetry forums and lovely poets and artists on twitter, I have a group of close poet-friends whose work I admire. We meet to discuss poetry and life weekly, and their help is invaluable. Also, there were a few kind editors back when I was just sending off work that took time out to give me a couple of lines of valuable advice, sometimes about the poems, sometimes about my bio. Small things, but they helped. And being part of a super-lovely, super-talented poet/artist twitter community.

Q4: Where did you grow up and how did that influence you? Have any travels influenced your work?

Sarah-Jane: I grew up in a tiny, tiny village in the middle of nowhere with my Mum (who didn’t drive). My Dad was frequently away travelling. It was only when I went away to college that I realised not all shopping trips took place monthly, and things like all-night-garages existed. I thought all-night garages were magical. I’d stay up until midnight to buy a Kit-Kat just because I could. I think growing up surrounded by so much nature programmed me to look at colours, scents and sounds in a close way. I developed a very vivid imagination. Also it was quite boring so I read an awful lot!

Q5: What do you consider your most meaningful work creatively to you?

Sarah-Jane; Probably my first ever ‘series’ of visual poems that ‘worked’ cohesively as an idea – erasure poems based on a late (19 scientific diary/set of observations which created imaginary constellations. Making them taught me how to move between analogue and digital techniques, and to work in a sequence.

Q6: Favorite activities to relax?

Sarah-Jane: Drawing and reading. I don’t do a great deal of conscious relaxation. I work and work and work and work, then I sleep.

Q7: What is a favorite line/ stanza/lyric from your writing?

Sarah-Jane: ‘Bad cleverness in the artist’. It’s ‘found’ text from an early (20 technical guide to calligraphy.

Q8: What kind of music inspires you the most? What is a song or songs that always come back to you as an inspiration?

Sarah-Jane: I play artists I like on repeat. It changes according to what I’m working on, but at the moment it’s usually Loma.

Q9: Do you have any recent or upcoming books, music, events, projects that you would like to promote?

Sarah-Jane: I’ll be collaborating again with the fabulous Renee at Rare Swan press soon. And I’ll be bringing out a short-print run artist book with The Ethelzine in 2023. I work at Hereford College of Arts and I’ve some tiny accordion books and lots of images and video/audio on show at our staff showcase now (the private view is today) so if you live near Hereford please drop in!

Bonus Question: Any funny memory or strange occurrence you’d like to share during your creative journey?

Sarah-Jane: Collage brings with it a definition of strange. I once spent a morning sticking teeny-tiny lightbulbs onto a variety of teeny tiny insect derrières.

Please include any links, bio, a photo to be posted on the website.

Twitter: @Sarahjfc

Insta: Sarah_jfc

Website: sarah-janecrowson.com

Bio: Sarah-Jane’s work is inspired by fairytales, nature, psychogeography and surrealism. She uses bricolage to explore the space between real and imagined; creating alternative narratives as small acts of resistance. Sarah-Jane’s work can be seen in various journals, including Waxwing Literary Journal, Rattle, Petrichor, Sugar House Review and Iron Horse Literary Review. You can find her on Twitter @Sarahjfc or on her website at www.sarahjanecrowson.art

Inspired by Leonard Cohen lyric visual piece from Maggs Vibo

Maggs Vibo (aka Margaret Viboolsittiseri) a visual poet/artist who has had several art & poetry pieces included in Fevers of the Mind online & in print anthologies. Maggs also designed the Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview series logo, and the photo which is the cover art to my book “The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers” is from a photo that Maggs photographed.

Congrats! To Fevers of the Mind contributor Maggs Vibo

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Margaret Viboolsittiseri aka Maggs Vibo

Photography from Maggs Vibo : Lone Road on Island of Moloka’i

I Don’t Need Anesthesia: Photo Art & Poetry by Maggs Vibo

Visual Poetry by Maggs Vibo : the Year of the Ox

I Don’t Need Anesthesia: Photo Art & Poetry by Maggs Vibo

Visual Poetry by Tova Beck-Friedman “Disparity”

Disparity

on a rainy night
they stand
gazing into destiny 

molded figures 
set apart
isolated 
fragmented

in the distance
mortal flesh 
awaits tomorrow  


Bio:
Tova Beck-Friedman is a visual artist, filmmaker, writer and poet.
In recent work she fuses poetry and moving images to create cine-poems.
Her work has been shown internationally in film festivals, museums, galleries
and on television.

http://tbfstudio.com
@tbfstudio
https://www.facebook.com/tova.beckfriedman
https://www.instagram.com/tbfstudio/

Pop Art #3 Yolk by Maggs Vibo

Margaret Viboolsittiseri (aka Maggs Vibo) works in print, broadcast, special events, glitch media, and online. She is a contributor for Poem Atlas and has experimental art in the winnow
magazine, Coven Poetry, Ice Floe Press, The Babel Tower Notice Board, ang(st), The Wombwell Rainbow. Recent anthologies include Poem Atlas ‘aww-struck’, Steel Incisors, Fevers of the
Mind Press Presents the Poets of 2020 (January, 2021) and ‘My teeth don’t chew on shrapnel’: an anthology of poetry by military veterans (Oxford Brookes, 2020). She tweets @maggsvibo
and her website is https://www.maggsvibo.com/

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Margaret Viboolsittiseri aka Maggs Vibo

Thanks to Maggs for designing our Q9 Logos

with Maggs Vibo

Q1: When did you start writing/art and first influences?

Maggs: My Grandma used to call me an old soul during our conversations. She said that adults enjoyed my stories and songs. For learning, she advised wandering outside and listening to the teachings of nature. My Mom advised burning sage and handed me a paintbrush to deal with problems. My Dad advised defying dogma and looking to the cosmos for purpose. My influencers were artists because my parents loved art. Music filled our home and pondered war, art, feminism, drugs, and the government. Artists provided lyrical inspiration for the big and small questions in life. My childhood was a time of exploration and imagination. I suppose nowadays society calls this a free-range childhood. A sense of freedom is my earliest recollection of poetry and art.

Q2: Who has inspired or helped you the most with writing?

Maggs: All the great crafters of lore… especially Niki de Saint Phalle. I’ve always admired the way she morphed storytelling her trauma into an art triumph.

Niki de Saint Phalle at Atlanta, GA (2006)

Q3: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing/art?

Maggs: My family lived on farms in the Heartland of the United States. It was an excellent opportunity to observe the natural world. Folklore is embedded in art because of oral storytelling traditions. Today we use memes and other technologies, but it is just a continuation of ancient stories told in new ways with new methods. Everything I learned about animals and the countryside, along with old fables and tales, influences my art today.

Q4: Have any travels away from home influenced work/describe?

Maggs: My first trip abroad was for a Nanny gig in Canberra, Australia. I’ve deployed as a GWOT soldier. Additionally, military assignments took my spouse (a soldier) and me (his spouse) to Europe, Asia and Hawaii. I feel privileged to write about these multicultural experiences. I never take for granted the circumstances (wars) which led to the opportunities.

Maggs Vibo and CW4 Wattana Viboolsittiseri aboard USS Missouri, 2017

Q5: What do you consider the most meaningful work you’ve done creatively so far?

Maggs: My work in the military community over the past two decades is the most meaningful. It started with art I contributed to events commemorating the fallen. Later, I wrote an article about an Army staff sergeant named Daniel A. Bader. In 2004, a college literary journal published a poem I wrote about an experience during one of my convoys near what was known as Tallil Air Base (located in Nasiriyah, Iraq). I created pieces for the Veterans Writing Project (including a journal written by all women and an anthology covering 2012-2017). In 2018, I collaborated with Jerri Bell and Tracy Crow on women warrior history programs for the National Park Service. In 2020, Oxford Brookes University invited me to a poetry workshop facilitated by Niall Munro, Susie Campbell, and Jane Potter. It was an intimate gathering of women veterans from the US and UK which studied war and poetry. From this workshop, and other veterans’ poetry workshops, the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre published ‘My teeth don’t chew on shrapnel’: an anthology of poetry by military veterans (a free pdf available for download at: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/poetry-centre/veterans–poetry-workshops/). This meaningful work led to many collaborative projects outside the military community. Nowadays, I try to engage at least once a quarter in programs which help bridge the civilian and military divide.

Women’s History Program at Prince George County Regional Heritage Center, L to R: Jerri Bell, Reinetta VanEendenburg, Ranger Maggs Vibo and Tracy Crow, 2018.

Q6: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be an artist/poet?

Maggs: All throughout my childhood I was regarded as a nerdy thespian. I sang songs, danced poorly, walked around with paint under my fingernails and boasted my participation in art and drama club. The death of my grandpa had a big impact on my writing. I wrote a short story which discussed his leg amputation and mobility challenges. In the essay, I talked about his alcohol abuse, use of painkillers and how addiction led to his downward health spiral. My short story placed at state competition. I was invited to a soiree where my parents and friends watched me receive a plaque. This was my first recognition for writing. More than anything, I remember how telling my truth helped my family process our collective grief. The essay is stored inside a cedar chest Dad crafted for safekeeping all of my Mom’s favorite things.

Q7: Favorite activities to relax?

Maggs: I like to cycle the Virginia Capital Trail to the marina to have a local brew, catch the sun on the water and cycle back home to spend time with my two dogs. If it involves being outside in nature (or staring lovingly at my dogs) I regard it as true bliss.

Q8: One of your favorite lines from your poem/song, or favorite piece of art of photograph.

Maggs: Favorite line from a poet is Walt Whitman’s “Do I contradict myself?” As a Park Ranger, I gave battlefield interpretive tours out at Petersburg National Battlefield. Each tour discussed the ways contradiction exists in telling the stories of the American Civil War… and all the other conflicts throughout history. Favorite singer: Neil Finn. Favorite book: Black Elk Speaks. Favorite art: ancient art. Favorite movie: Paprika (2006 film). Favorite photograph: NASA image of boot print on the lunar soil.

Pu’uloa Petroglyphs, Big Island, Hawaii, 2014

Q9 Any recent or forthcoming projects you’d like to promote?

I have a visual poetry piece on exhibition until the end of summer in Virginia. I also work forthcoming in 2 pubs from Paris and a journal from South Asia (all before the end of summer, 2021). I am thrilled to have 10 pieces in Experiment-0, Issue 14, Autumn 2021 Release. The rest is listed on Poemythology.com