Meeting is composed of various acts that involve conversation, reading, and writing: daily actions -through at the same time out of the ordinary-that always involves being face to face. Dani Zelko writes down poems that others dictate to him. They dictate to him as the conversation develops and then finally ceases. After fulfilling his task as a listener and copyist, I have edits and prints the books the following day. The books are presented to neighbors, family, and friends of the writer in a circle of nine people. The writer reads his poems out loud, he listens to himself and the others hear him for the first time. The second part of the project consists of an extension of the first acts in other places. Writers' poems are read out loud by spokespersons, emissaries, and people who lend their body, eyes and voice to read in a round of nine chairs the poems of people who are absent. A chain of actions, subjects dictating and reading, a scribe and a listener, spokesmen, and listeners, books and poems. Actions and procedures for being with others.
This present edition, called North Border, was made between September 2017 and October 2018, in different places around Mexico, the United States and Canada, such as Tijuana, Veracruz, Texas, Florida, New York, Princeton, and Toronto. The cover photograph was taken just before the presentation of Maritza's book. It took place in "The Line," a border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego. Maritza read her poems aloud to her caravan friends; then they gave away some books to the people who were passing by, and they walked to the United States to ask for political asylum.
Softcover, 204 pages, risograph, 6.75 inches x 9.125 inches, Gato Negro Ediciones, 2019.
