Folded Poem from Marie Wintzer

[Thom Courcelle]

I have seen--it seems--some rather amazing poetry included on this site and inclusive of many mail art pieces recently.  It does my heart good.  Poetry has saved my soul many times over.  And though I shant wish to proselytize poetry upon any of the masses that define themselves as verbal art-agnostic, I would like to celebrate a recent mailing from Japan that might make you see the light.  You might find yourself verse-converted...

Firstly, Marie always seems to find such amazing and graffically delightful images from which to make her home-made envelopes, that one must wonder what could possibly surpass the external pleasure of the mail packet itself...

This particular envelope was so slim and lightweight that one didn't imagine much could be inside besides a little slip of something... but oh, how wrong I was!

 A torn piece of fabric, embroidered in satin ruby thread, and a tail of Marie's famous red thread trailing off with a MinXus tag attached.  Did she tear a sleeve on the post mail box as she was sending mail art to the begging masses, and perhaps decide it would make a perfect new conceptual piece?...

Flipped over, a verbal treasure map appears... made of words.  Q'est-ce que c'est?The paper--just a small sheaf--is origamiied into little shingled planks.  Thus whatever might have been those original words of wonder... have condensed and consolidated into a brand new wonderful cryptic message... a message with its own poetry--a "folded poem," as Marie points out.

Marie's creations are always made of everyday scraps of commonplace things that float through our lives, cross our daily paths, are glossed-over by our eyes and psyches--things that otherwise miss our attention.  And she somehow combines those "little things" together in elemental collaboration so they are TRANSFORMED into a tiny little treasure.  Did you ever think a slip a paper belonged with a ragged scrap of fabric?  Or imagine that the artist's splotched droplet of white paint--a blemish distained by any mother if found on her child's Sunday dress--should make the final artwork hit its mark with anything less than magnificence?  Marie somehow brings our attention to things to which we haven't previously given any attention, and suddenly one wants to hold the thing in one's hands... or place it under a glass globe and place it on a pedestal in a hallowed hall, or lay it upon a velvet pillow and present it to a queen.

Read and be amazed:

And in case your eyes are going crossed, here is the verse delicately written-out by Marie herself of the "discovered" poem within her folds:

Your talent makes me jealous, Marie.  I discover your delicate creations in my mailbox, and I suddenly feel like my creations are blockish and drole.  (That's a compliment; not a complaint!)  Sorry it has taken a little lapse of time to acknowledge this wonderful piece, Marie.  But it attains a place of honor among gifts I have received...

[De Villo Sloan]

Or a gummy (bear).

[Thom Courcelle]

Vizma!  I just got a special birthday greeting from YOU that deserves its own velvet pillow!!  WHooowHHwheeee. I'll be making note of that in the blogs-spheres as I catch up here with my blessed backlog of postal hoard!  Thank you!

DVS-- Or a game,... eh?

[De Villo Sloan]

One of the true practitioners of the Arthur Rimbaud Symbolist School of Subtle Aesthetic Obscurity. Burroughs without bullets.

[vizma bruns]

I got a little poetry boekie from Marie yesterday, too, with lots of different variations of folding, very nice. Your blogging is lovely, Thom, it makes me want to send you gifts!

[De Villo Sloan]

oragamey

[Carina]

Beautiful, light, the skewness of the poem is exactly in the right place, love it!

[De Villo Sloan]

She's cutting up her clothes & mailing them to people. She sent Grigori Antonin one of her teeth, I kid you not. How do I get on the list for a toe?