GROUND is a collection of poems written between 2007 and 2012, mostly in Brooklyn. It was originally produced as a limited analog edition and bound by hand.
This volume was produced as a collection of existing poems in a range of forms; as the manuscript evolved it became clear that these pieces served three distinct sets of functions or states of being:
1) troubling the site / self relationship
2) sloughing away story, reducing to dust
3) seeking to establish a foundation
During this process, it seemed these were all parts of a whole, as well as representative of parts of speech; exploring etymologies, one sees that so too are all three contained in a single, rich wor(l)d: GROUND.
Author Biography:
Lynne DeSilva-Johnson is a nonbinary queer artist, scholar, curator, educator, and facilitator working in performance, exhibition, and publication in conversation with new media. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, and taught at the City College of New York for over a decade. A seasoned freelance editor and book designer, for years on the team of the criti- cally acclaimed 306090 Books, Lynne is the founder and Managing Editor of The Operating System, (a radical open source arts organization and small press) as well as Libraries Editor at Boog City. She is the author of GROUND, blood atlas, Over- view Effect, In Memory of Feasible Grace, Sweet and Low, and Progeny Restoration Corpoation, as well as co-author of A GUN SHOW with Adam Sliwinsk/Sō Percussion, and co-editor of the anthologies RESIST MUCH, OBEY LITTLE: Poems for the Resistance, and In Corpore Sano: Creative Practice and the Challenged Body. For The OS, she has edited and designed nearly 50 books to date, with many more on the way. Lynne and her work have been featured at a diverse array of venues, including The Dumbo Arts Festival, Naropa University, Artists Space, Bowery Arts and Science, The NYC Poetry Festival, Eyebeam, LaMaMa, Undercurrent Projects, Mellow Pages, The New York Public Library, VON, Launchpad BK, The Poet- ry Project, Temple University, Industry City Distillery, Happy Lucky No. 1, Howl Happening, Independent Curators International, Hell Phone, WCKR 89.9 FM NY, Unnamable Books, The Sidewalk Cafe, Parkside Lounge, Dixon Place, Poets Set- tlement, Karpeles Manuscript Library, Holland Tunnel Gallery, the Cooper Union, and in many publications. A deeply committed futurist, Lynne is always seeking (r)evolutionary possibility, through the building and reshaping of increasingly intelligent systems, institutions, and processes. For more, see: http: //lynne-desilva-johnson.strikingly.com; http: //www.theoperatingsystem.org
