The Visual Poetics of Dickinson Captures Artist's Imagination

Visual artist Jen Bervin, in collaboration with scholar Marta Werner, created a portfolio of prints inspired  by Emily Dickinson's "envelope poetry," whereby Dickinson, prone to writing on the envelopes that transported her writings, effectively rendered those envelopes much more than a shell of literary transport but transformed the envelopes into vital components of the material poetics--into content--themselves.

Werner & Bervin outsite the Houghton Library at Harvard

This portfolio, entitled Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson's Envelope-Poems, has been published by Granary Books and both Bervin and Werner are on tour around the country to promote their published collaboration. They will be speaking together at the NYPL's Schwarzman Library this Saturday, at which time the audience will be able to explore the new edition.

Bervin, according to scholar Logan Esdale, "is a poet and visual artist whose thinking works in and across spaces. She creates images to be read and words to be seen; reading is writing and defacing a text is a creative act" for her. Bervin has been fascinated by Dickinson's visual poetry for years, and, in 2010, created a series of six large scale embroidered works on the composites of the punctuation and various marginalia and editorial markings of Dickinson's poetry.

Composite marks of Fascicle 28

Be sure to catch up with Bervin at one of her many upcoming events, below:

Friday, October 12, 2012, Exhibition Opening in Denver
POSTSCRIPT: WRITING AFTER CONCEPTUAL ART, DENVER MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Co-curated by Nora Burnett Abrams and Andrea Andersson.
Exhibition runs throgh February 3, 2013 in Denver, then travels
to The Power Plant Contemporary Art in Toronto in June 2013.

Saturday, October 13th, 2 - 4 p.m. Dickinson Event in New York
THE GORGEOUS NOTHINGS: EMILY DICKINSON’S ENVELOPE POEMS
New York Public Library with Jen Bervin, Marta Werner and Steve Clay
The New York Public Library, South Court Auditorium
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York City

Sunday, October 14th, 2 p.m. Reading and Conversation in Philadelphia
MAKING BOOKS: A READING AND CONVERSATION WITH TRINIE DALTON & JEN BERVIN
Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA

Tuesday, October 16th at 7:30 p.m. TANTRA SONG Reading and Conversation in Brooklyn
FRANCK ANDRÉ JAMME, READING FROM TANTRA SONG IN CONVERSATION WITH JEN BERVIN
Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers
218 Bedford Street, Brooklyn

Wednesday, October 24th at 6:30 p.m. Poetry Reading in New York
CENTER BROADSIDES READING SERIES WITH JEN BERVIN AND SIMON PETTET
The Center for Book Art, Series Curator: Steve Clay
28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor, New York

Friday, October 26, 2012, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. Dickinson Event in Amherst
THE GORGEOUS NOTHINGS: EMILY DICKINSON’S ENVELOPE POEMS
Emily Dickinson Museum event with Jen Bervin and Marta Werner
Amherst College, Frost Library, First Floor, Amherst, MA
Event co-sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum,
Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, and Frost Library.

Saturday, October 27, 2012, 10:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. Workshop in Amherst
THE GORGEOUS NOTHINGS: EMILY DICKINSON’S ENVELOPE POEMS:
A Workshop with Jen Bervin and Marta Werner
Amherst Woman's Club
35 Triangle Street, Amherst