The Editors of Incliner are very proud of the new Incliner masthead image by AAC alum, Michael Vallera. See the original image below, along with a brief statement about it by Michael.
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It is familiar to understand the photographic image as a moment that has been captured in time, and represented as a document of that instant as it exists in the world. This series of photographs I have been taking over the past two years has much more to do with the folding of an environment up into the present. The images do not operate as isolated structures of a place and time, but through the use of rupture (in the form of two image collage and single image manipulation) create a space for continuous reinvestigation of the landscape and our shared experience within it. --Michael Vallera, 2009
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MICHAEL VALLERA is a Chicago based sound/visual artist, who graduated from the Art Academy in 2007. He's currently pursuing an MFA in Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. See more of his work at: http://michaelvallera.tumblr.com/.
It’s time like it never was to collect the space you overtook
on the street corner, the space you call your highrise. Wad it up
into a nylon portrait, migrate it to the country you invented
with your friend in St. Louis. Remember?
One day he typed, Let’s start our own country—
and this felt clandestine, probable and aquamarine.
From a cracked cookie it rang against the commotion
of leftover Szechuan chicken. Time to collect yourself,
those good selves, those good rain tarps, those Hail Marys,
those happy divers. Time to collect those good
silly putties, the city centers, the nay votes, the old vascular
occlusions. When the time comes couches will float away
with eyes sewn into their seams. Always time to collect,
always time to be a good swimmer. Or was there a misspelling
at your funeral? Was it always just time?
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TODAY'S FORTUNE: SOME NOTES ON "TIME TO COLLECT THOSE GOOD"
Afew weeks ago I cracked open a fortune cookie that read,
Time to collect those good
This was a shining moment in a hopelessly dull week. Do-It-Yourself fortunes! In addition to the obvious after-dinner fun, the unfinished fortune was like a dare when I needed some prodding. Writing has been hard going lately, and I’ve been mining the strangest places for poems: old emails, the urban planning books my husband reads like romance novels, ads in magazines. Fortune cookie threw the first punch, and I countered.
My relationship to this poem as it stands is that it is a work-in-progress. I wrote the first line, “it’s time like it never was,” and let the poem find its own trajectory. I like where it went. There are inklings of flooding and destruction in there and also the hint that maybe the poem is about time rather than collecting, or perhaps they’re the same thing. Sometimes the freedom of letting the poem just say whatever it will makes for a magical experience first time out. Other times, the language needs some work and the magic exists in the tinkering. In either case, magic = discovery. I’m not sure I’ve found the sparkle in this poem yet; I hope it’ll happen that I can ratchet the volume up several decibels in each line during revision. Another question I have: the poem is written in couplets. Why? Couplets make a lot of sense to me as I’m putting them down; they seem to allow both tiny bursts of compactness and room to breathe in between. If the poem just flew down the page it’d probably be a different poem. I’ll likely experiment with line breaks and stanzas, but I’m ninety-seven percent sure I’ll go back to the couplets.
The repetition of the partial fortune is working for me. Sometimes all a poem needs for a backbone is the momentum of repetition. “Time to collect those good” opens up space for, quite literally, absolutely anything to happen. What happens is this series of oddities like nay votes and silly putty—all things that swirl around in my head sometimes. The repetition, in particular, has unlocked a whole series of poems—none of which I’ve written yet, but I’m getting excited about them.
--Alexis Orgera, 2009
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Alexis Orgera is the author of two chapbooks, Illuminatrix (Forklift, Ink) and Dear Friends, the Birds Were Wonderful (Blue Hour Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bat City Review, DIAGRAM, Folio, Forklift Ohio, Fou, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, H_NGM_N, In Posse Review, The Journal, jubilat, Luna, No Tell Motel, Sixth Finch, storySouth, The Rialto, SUB-LIT, and The Tusculum Review, among others. She works at New College of Florida where she edits New CollAge magazine.
Christmas: In my mouth, Everything. Your resentment Towards children For living without you. Candy dishes Wrapping paper, Come time Unwrapping Our own Seth Green Blow up dolls And cocktails Honey, You look fatter Than ever, It’s great to see you. Waste Of time, Green and alive, Clean, unfamiliar Territory, Full of feathers Tweety Bird key chains.
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Douglas Remember That time We watched porn, Sneaking sneaks Like kids Snooping for Christmas presents. New York City, I’d rather be. Beautiful Images? A minute the music stops, Living Under rocks, Around trees, Through sweater vests. Come Alive. Shut your eyes And you can feel it For miles Around. Around underpants And tube socks. I’ll take my purple Suitcase and leave you With your unresolved issues. Shut your eyes, And you can feel it: Nobody wants to be here Any more than you.
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Tabatha Rufft wants to be a giraffe when she grows up. She enjoys pasta and green tea. Currently, she is majoring in Visual Communications at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, though she still doesn't know what that really means.
