Is It Chaos Or Not is a playful and incisive collaboration between Mac Crane and Wilder, who was, at the time of drafting, an inquisitive and insightful young child of three. Throughout the collection, Wilder speaks and Mac answers. Wilder, through snippets caught and reassembled; and Mac, through those reassemblies, and their own thoughts at hand.
Using the cut-up method, popularized by writers like William S. Burroughs, who believed the technique could uncover hidden meaning within even the most ordinary—or ideological—text, Mac is able to reveal something quiet and intimate: the higher truth embedded in the everyday language of a child. Through the attentive eyes of their parent, Wilder’s musings become at once political (“the cops are not nice / they do not dance”), psychological (“I’m cheering / for the blue team / there is no blue team”), surreal, and voicey—alive with the contradiction, intuition, and clarity of one opening their eyes on this world the first time.
Crane’s original poems act as subtle responses to Wilder, creating an ongoing exchange between parent and child; between curiosity and the fraught aspiration to have all the answers. Beneath it all, another layer emerges: the child’s language echoes, shaped, as it is, by previous conversations, questions, and explanations from the parent. The results is a dialogue that transcends, a recursive intimacy that mirrors and reflects each back to the other.
Relaese Date:
ISBN: 978-1-964932-26-2
36 pages
Is It Chaos Or Not is a playful and incisive collaboration between Mac Crane and Wilder, who was, at the time of drafting, an inquisitive and insightful young child of three. Throughout the collection, Wilder speaks and Mac answers. Wilder, through snippets caught and reassembled; and Mac, through those reassemblies, and their own thoughts at hand.
Using the cut-up method, popularized by writers like William S. Burroughs, who believed the technique could uncover hidden meaning within even the most ordinary—or ideological—text, Mac is able to reveal something quiet and intimate: the higher truth embedded in the everyday language of a child. Through the attentive eyes of their parent, Wilder’s musings become at once political (“the cops are not nice / they do not dance”), psychological (“I’m cheering / for the blue team / there is no blue team”), surreal, and voicey—alive with the contradiction, intuition, and clarity of one opening their eyes on this world the first time.
Crane’s original poems act as subtle responses to Wilder, creating an ongoing exchange between parent and child; between curiosity and the fraught aspiration to have all the answers. Beneath it all, another layer emerges: the child’s language echoes, shaped, as it is, by previous conversations, questions, and explanations from the parent. The results is a dialogue that transcends, a recursive intimacy that mirrors and reflects each back to the other.
Relaese Date:
ISBN: 978-1-964932-26-2
36 pages
Image 1 of 5
Image 2 of 5
Image 3 of 5
Image 4 of 5
Image 5 of 5