In 1995, fresh out of college, I wrote and published a chapbook called Little Deaths.
I approached this project as both a writing exercise and as serial sculpture: After I wrote the story and the haiku poems, I hand lettered, illustrated, printed, assembled, and bound all fifty copies in the edition (plus a few artist’s proofs). I did not have a computer at the time, so there was never a digital master. This production was as analog as it could be. The entire series was handmade using photocopies, blueprints, hand-carved rubber stamps, ink, and glue.
For the front cover (shown above), I used a highly-textured purple paper, which I glued to three chipboard supports (front and back covers; spine). I printed the title, by-line, and “logo” with rubber stamps that I carved by hand from rubber erasers.
Front papers
I developed this pattern of onions by stamping repeatedly with the aforementioned rubber stamp.
More front papers
Can you tell that I like onions? The left page was semi-translucent vellum, hinting at an onion skin; the right was an actual blueprint, which provides a nice velvety texture and some wonderful, accidental color bleed.
Title page
Another blueprint featuring an enlargement of the onion pattern.
Dedication
This little chapbook written and hand-bound in an edition of 50 (plus a few artist’s proofs) by Trace Meek […] U.S.A 1995. Thanks to Benjamin Ostiguy, who took the photos on pages 26 & 30. For all who would listen…
The story begins with a walk.
Now and again Annelise would go out on walks and would collect mementos of her various visits. A pebble here, an interesting stick there. Occasionally a pine cone or a sweetgum pod. A piece of mossy bark, a small shard of brick, a snail shell. A palm full of strange-color dirt from a significant location, the dried shell of a bumblebee. An old shoe heel, a
butterfly wing. Quite a smattering of these little treasures had begun to collect here and there in the nooks and crannies about her apartment. Each one would forever evoke in her a little pocket of memory, a reminder of a particular place, a particular time, and a particular state of mind. On this particular day, Annelise walked in a direction that she had never taken before. Guided only by intuition and a desire to be outdoors, she proceeded without a fixed destination. Out from the bustle of the town, through the quiet neighborhoods behind the college, over the abandoned trestle, out along the paths that lead through woodlands and meadows, left muddy by an early thaw. Out along
a subtle ridge to a cornfield and an apple orchard, to a view of those familiar mountains in the distance. The weather was unseasonably warm, but a roaring wind blew thick, moist air in over the mountains. High above, the close-knit trees clacked their leafless branches together as though they were deer locking antlers.
As Annelise gazed out upon those cool grey mountains and the slightly lighter-grey sky above, she wondered to herself, “How could I possibly express this moment and the euphoria that it brings, without positively living it for someone?” She entertained the notion of bringing back sweetgum pods by the bagful and handing them out to people on the street, then had a little laugh to herself. “Everyone will find their own little memory pods,” she mused, “their own reminders of a particular place, a particular time, and a particular state of mind.” For ages Annelise would continue to try to express the inexplicable, such as she had experienced on that winter’s day, and
on so many occasions before and since. Now and again she would go out on walks and would collect little soulful impressions, little memories, little nuggets of folk wisdom which would swim around her and emerge into five- and seven-syllable phrases. Annelise would stash these phrases in the nooks and crannies about her heart, live with them, and savor them. To her surprise, they would eventually assemble themselves into haiku poems, some of which are shared with you here…
Haikus
Haiku
The good goes away,
the bad follows right behind,
then they both come back.
Haiku
Expressing our needs,
look at what our hands have done—
this is where we live.
Haiku
Onions enlighten—
peel back through clear layered skins,
get to the essence.
Haiku
Islands in the Sun
thinking we could be as one:
closeness in distance.
Haiku
When in a painting
you see a beckoning road,
then down it you go!
Haiku
Send a friend a gift—
when it arrives at the door
you get love supreme.
Haiku
Natural logic
pays attention to within—
calm before a quake.
Haiku
Fate interrupts us—
little deaths we live each day
as we approach one.
Haiku
Several apples,
passed over by suns and moons,
return to damp earth.
Haiku
In the wild of life
relationships come undone
and new ones are formed.
End papers
More end papers
I sold a few copies of this chapbook on consignment through a cool but now defunct bookstore (whose name I forget) in Downtown Amherst, gave many copies away to friends, family, and muses, and kept none for myself. Thanks to an old friend, a copy made its way back to me nearly two decades after I published it, so that I could scan it and reproduce it here. Enjoy.