PERFORMANCE DOCUMENTATION: site-specific/wandering poetry intervention #1 (10/20/25)

over the summer i had begun to get a new idea together, for a walking, solitary poetic performance/intervention that emerged from the "poem walks" i have described and documented here, but which would be different from that mode of performance. where the poem walks involve erasing a pre-inked poem through ongoing movement--friction removing the ink of the poems from the soles of the shoes i wear in the performance, which ends when the traces of the poems are transferred from the shoes to the terrain i have traversed--this new performance would leave the poems behind in a legible way. i wanted the poems to be able to be removed without being destroyed, or to be naturally destructible if they remained. 

in the process of sewing a traditional garment related to lay ordination in the soto zen buddhist tradition, i had taken apart a white cotton dress shirt, for material in making one piece of the garment. the disassembled shirt gave me an idea for the basic substrate of the poems i would involve in the performance. i cut numerous rough squares of white cotton, and they sat in a paper bag since july.

a few weeks ago i hauled them out again, having decided how i would work with them. 

i decided to ink short poems in block letters using a sharpie gel pen, one per square, and put a safety pin in the corner to enable securing each poem to a thin anchor--a twig or leaf stem, a piece of wire fencing--out of doors. ultimately i ended up pretty much composing a chapbook-length collection of related yet standalone poems, over the space of two days--tiring! 

the poems took on a definite political ambiance, emerging from my engagement with the violent ICE abductions and murders through targeted executive branch attacks on the city of chicago. in a short time i noticed that i was addressing agents, tourists and locals in something that could be the voice, or a voice, of the city itself. the poems speak of animals, plants, the relations of all beings moving in and through this place that is our home. i was angry and digging in when i wrote these poems, but also transfixed with the beauty of this city, loving it deeply, as i always have.

i was not able to initiate the actual performance of the piece until yesterday, and i discovered that i could only place a fraction of the total number of poems before getting worn out. so the performance itself is many performances, and can be spread over more locations throughout chicago, generating that much more potential for relation, movement, decomposition, inspiration, transformation and confusion, wonder, delight. 

these are the poems i placed yesterday: 

and here is the area in which they were placed...roughly. i don't especially want to detail their location, but for documentary purposes, an image of the general location feels important. i have not decided whether i will try to go back and discover their fates, after some time has passed (perhaps in late winter). 

but i might.