Poetry Bombing
Over Spring Break I made a deal with myself: I will only shop recreationally at thrift stores. I made this deal for two reasons: one, there’s no point in spending excessive cash on clothes that I absolutely do not need and two, since I’m a subscriber to retail therapy, it makes the most sense to spend my money at Goodwill and Salvation Army, places that are donating that money to a good cause.
Additionally, I find thrift shopping to be an exciting treasure hunt adventure. When I head out of a second hand store after an hour (sometimes two) I have exhausted the racks; fought fatigue, annoyance, mustiness, and the damn Salvation Army PA system; and won the booty I am carrying (especially if it’s a half-off Wednesday).
Today I read about Agustina Woodgate, a Miami based artist who poetry bombs (or tags) second hand clothing at local thrift shops.
Of her project she writes, “Places and Objects are alive, we make them alive, they tell our stories and tales. Sewing poems in clothes in a way is giving the garments a voice. We are in relation—with others, with things, with the world. This being-in-relation, is a way of perceiving, a mode of moving, a narrative of global truths designed by cultural fictions. Sewing poems in clothes is a way of bringing poetry to everyday life just by displacing it, by removing it from a paper to integrate it and fuse it with our lives. Sometimes little details are stronger when they are separated from where they are expected to be.”
I would be so stoked to find a poem in my thrifted clothes!
Woodgate’s other projects are equally zany and social in concept and design. As a Mobil Hairdresser she collected the hair of her customers over four years, using it in her other pieces like these felted slippers.
♥ Kylin
Source: Agustina Woodgate via Design Mom
Giving beauty to the world seems like a special thing to share. I kept wondering how someone could find the time to provide beauty like the Poetry Bomb and find work and love and children and make a contribution to society in other ways, etc. But as I thought about it, it felt like this project was like the practice of Buddhism in the West. Instead of carrying a bowl around and asking people for rice and food, we sew poems in used clothing. A new Buddhist practice, made for those of us in the West.
Love, Papa