Blanket Stories
A color-illustrated anthology edited by Richard Jochum and Ruth Zamoyta
Five siblings inherit a blanket. They lie beneath it, together, to stay warm. But inevitably body parts stick out and they squabble and tug. They do not realize that they would all fit if they just moved closer together.
This is a summary of the Blanket Story, a tale that was podcast online and that launched over 100 creative responses in many forms: poetry, visual art, music. Some of the works were displayed and performed at Teachers College, Columbia University in the City of New York, in June 2014. Some of the poems and art have been collected in this book.
View more contributions at blanketstories.net.
"By exposing a simple, narrated tale to many artistic reiterations, the message is refracted through multiple lenses. Every poem becomes a way to contest the overall morality of the tale and opens it up for discussion and reassessment. By soliciting various viewpoints, Blanket Stories has become a collaborative project. The goal is to demonstrate how the significance of a parable can be personally grasped and poetically reiterated or extrapolated in an infinite number of creative ways while being used for teaching.
"Our hope for this project is to increase appreciation for and understanding of poetry. Poems can be intimidating when we have no point of reference. We often don’t know how to read them or what the poet was thinking. Because the tale of the blanket is a template used by all poets in this book, the reader can look to the story as a starting point for interpreting the poems and understanding how poets use language to express meaning."
"I think the key to poetry’s future is to get closer together and realize how big the blanket of language is that is wrapping around us. This, I believe, is the key to health and growth of all art forms. We need to get closer together within our fields and then get closer together across fields. We need to collaborate with non-artists and see that aesthetic logic is part of any kind of thinking. We need to make a vision of our existence that is large and vast and not trapped by the process of tugging at a blanket."
Authors: Janelle Adsit, Austin Alexis, Jennifer Arin, David Breeden, Nicole Callihan, Enriqueta Carrington, Nancy Cook, Sherri Lynn Cooper, Dawn Corrigan, Carolyn Faye Davis, Gail Denham, Juditha Dowd, Brittany Ericksen, Dawn Ferchak, Ellen Foos, Isabalino Anastasio Guzman, Anne Harding Woodworth, Lois Marie Harrod, Jacqueline Hughes Simon, B.T. Joy, Dean Kostos, Lisa Lebduska, David Macpherson, Judith McNally, Susan Laughter Meyers, Sharon Olson, Zara Raab, Paulina Rieloff-Nielsen, Basil Rouskas, Michael Smolinsky, Roslyn Tanner Evans, Maria Terrone, John A. Vanek, Christopher Woods, Rosemary O’Neil Wright, Michelle Young, and Ruth Zamoyta
Illustrators: Rebecca Bersohn, John Figurski, Cecilia Oh, and Juyoung Yoo
Ordering Information
| Title | Author | ISBN-13 | Price US$ | Shipping US$ |
|
Blanket Stories |
Richard Jochum and Ruth Zamoyta, editors | ISBN 978-1-933974-13-2 | $17each |
USA: International orders: Please email us with your address and quantity. |
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