Interview: Arrangements - A Digital Art Project Bridging Music, History and Poetry

Interdisciplinary Influences

Q: This project bridges music, history and poetry through digital art. How do you see these different disciplines influencing each other in the final piece?

Arrangements could only have come into existence in the digital realm, where collaboration thrives. It's a project made possible by several partnerships.

I partnered with the Francisco Caronlinum Museum to honor Anton Bruckner's 200th birth year. The museum partnered, in turn, with Ancora Art, a platform capable of producing their ambitious vision – creating an extensive generative series, inscribed onto the Bitcoin blockchain, that allows for ample public participation, connecting hundreds of individuals to Bruckner's musical legacy via poetry and generative art.

The final visuals in Arrangements are a collaboration with acclaimed artist Harto and arrange the original poem I wrote onto musical graph paper, fusing elements that are signature to Harto's style, such as the palette, creating 824 unique iterations. Technology, here, facilitates operations that can scale deeply compelling, one-of-a-kind works.

Interpreting Bruckner's Proposal

Q: How did you approach the interpretation of Anton Bruckner's proposal in your poetry?

Arrangements is an epistolary project. My poem directly responds to one of Anton Bruckner's letters, a romantic proposal made to a young woman he hardly knew. What struck me about Bruckner's proposal is how earnest and innocent it is. But also how desperate.

Perhaps his innocence prompted the woman to decline, or was it his desperation? Could it be the fact that they hardly knew each other?

Nearly two hundred years later, everything is conjecture, speculation. But this guessing game brings us closer to the story. We are curious creatures.

When I was invited to be part of the project, I was told I would be responding to the composer's letters. I never imagined coming across such a unique and fascinating letter as his proposal.

Upon reading it, I immediately knew that my poem would respond to this one, open-hearted call.

Bruckner's text and my letter-as-poem wield the force of dramatic energy, rendered acute by the vast span of time that elapsed between them. I believe this energy will be contagious, drawing other readers into the story built by both letters.

Historical Documents in Contemporary Poetry

Q: Can you share your thoughts on using historical documents, such as a 19th century proposal, as a basis for contemporary poetry? How does this historical connection enhance or complicate your creative process?

The Francisco Carolinum's idea to invite a poet to respond to Bruckner's letters, in lieu of his musical compositions, is brilliant because his letters help us connect to the being behind the music.

In particular, Bruckner's proposal affords a tender glimpse into the genius composer's inner world. We see him as someone who, like us, is trying his luck at love.

Time may pass, but what drives us as individuals remains unchanged – the pursuit of affection, the heartache of rejection, the sometimes arduous evolution of long-term, committed relationships, and the difficulty in letting go of our past.

Furthermore, each iteration of Arrangements feels personal because it is unique, creating an even more visceral bond with its reader, or collector.

Poetic Voice and Dialogue

Q: What role does your poetic voice play in responding to Bruckner's proposal? Did you feel a sense of dialogue with him, or was your response more a reflection of your own experiences and perspectives?

My poetry is deeply rooted in the personal details of my day. Our hopes, desires, regrets, quests for purpose are inseparable from the logistics of living. We boil eggs, answer emails, water plants, rip envelopes, bag groceries, towel children, all while pondering the ultimate meaning of our existence.

My work also tends to be very straightforward. I believe that only brutally honest writing can be relatable–much less universal.

I like to employ rhyme, which becomes a marked departure from our normal speech patterns and has the power to add intention, play, and subversion to a text.

I think that the element of play welcomes readers. People who perhaps were intimidated by poetry at some stage of their life feel at home in my often simple and playful poems.

To me, a poem works when it manages to be conversational and oracular.

My poem employs a casual, familiar tone – speaking to Bruckner as if he were an old friend sitting in the same room. There's definitely a sense of dialogue and of proximity. But my poem is true to my poetic voice and uses mundane, personal details to access timeless, universal themes of love and heartache.

Bitcoin Inscriptions

Q: The integration of bitcoin inscriptions adds a modern, digital dimension to this project. What excites you most about this form of publishing and preserving art?

Bitcoin efficiently allows for text-only inscriptions, in which no visuals whatsoever are attached. Poems transact while their verses are preserved in the blockchain that started it all.

Inscribing poems onto Bitcoin is a very prescient manifestation of my message: "poem = work of art."

This same reason drove me to participate in the Sotheby's auction at the start of 2024, curated by 0xFar. Little did I know that my poem, a villanelle about birthing inscribed onto Bitcoin, would become the very first poem ever sold in the history of Sotheby's.

Blockchain and Poetry's Future

Q: Do you see blockchain technology as an important part of the future of poetry? How does it fit in with your artistic philosophy?

Web3 and blockchain provenance can activate poetry by making it transactable.

The word "transaction" is a good word. When we transact something, we exchange it, we share, we give, we receive, we sell, we buy, and we assign value. We can also give life via transactions. When we send our mother a poem we love, we give this poem new life within our mother's mind. Transactions are important.

I believe Web3, which gives poets the ability to transact digital poems in a way that adequately reflects our contribution to culture for what may be the first time in history, will reassert poetry's agency and broaden the way verse is experienced, creating opportunities for poetry to be curated, exhibited, and collected as art.

When I read about Web3, I felt very strongly that blockchain provenance would prove revolutionary in expressing the value of a poem. I instantly began dreaming up a digital poetry gallery. This vision became theVERSEverse.com.

Poems are of course works of art. But poetry's had a logistical problem.

The way we've typically supported the work of poets is by acquiring their books. But purchasing a book, which easily represents a decade's worth of work, for 14.99 is not a viable economic model for poets.

Digital poems now sit at the same table as any digital artwork, able to break the warm bread of blockchain provenance.

Impact on Contemporary Readers

Q: What do you hope contemporary readers and viewers will take away from this poetic dialogue between you and Bruckner?

I hope people will be moved to discover his music, the reason we are all here, the music that, two hundred years later, still plays.

Personal Reflections on Bruckner

Q: Has this project changed your view of Bruckner, either as a historical figure or as an artist?

This project has brought me much closer to Bruckner, the person, and, consequently, to Bruckner the musician. When we learn about the vulnerabilities of storied historical figures, we tend to come closer to them. Indeed, the classic notion of the hero pivots around their flaw.

Genius catches our eye, but soul keeps us close.

I'm so grateful that one of the founders of Ancora, Steven Reiss, connected to my poetry at an event and invited me to be part of this project. It's so fitting that poetry brought us together.