Recently I’ve taken a detour from my slow-burning fiction writing (mentioned in a previous post) and dipped back into poetry to collaborate with artist Pauline Scott-Garrett, and Spanish tutor and film programmer Lorena Pino Montilla, on a poetry project.
For some time, Pauline’s art has engaged with issues surrounding human dislocation, displacement and exile, most recently seen in work engaging with stories from US immigration policies, especially Donald Trump’s 2018 zero-tolerance policy which enforced the separation of children from their parents at the US border. In particular, Scott-Garrett’s series ‘Borderland’ (collage and intaglio print) which will be on show at the Walcot Chapel in Bath 29 October – 2 November 2024, was inspired by news reports of a single father and undocumented migrant who was deported back to El Salvador while his six-year-old daughter remained in US custody. The story was covered in different news outlets including The Guardian, 24 June 2018.
I’ve written six poems responding to the story, and to Pauline’s work, and made them into a zine / mini-pamphlet to accompany Pauline’s show in Bath in October.
I also commissioned Lorena Pinto Montilla to translate my poems into Spanish and I’m still pondering how to share these translations! If anyone has tips for an online literary journal which might like to take one or two of the poems translated from English to Spanish, please let me know.
I found the experience of ‘publishing’ my own zine/mini-pamphlet really empowering and I think there will be more self-publications like this in the future. I’m not sure that Six Poems, with its glossy cover featuring one of Pauline’s intaglio prints, can accurately be described as a ‘zine’ which I associate with punk poetry (nothing against punk by the way, I love its ethos!). Mike at Seren Arts Gallery in Bradford on Avon worked his magic on my publication with his beautiful design and reprographic work (I recommend).
Although Trump withdrew his zero-tolerance policy a few months after introducing it (with no proper arrangements for returning separated children to their parents), the current rhetoric about immigration remains de-humanizing, and not just in the United States. In particular, I find it shocking that children’s lives are treated with such disdain, as if childhood is a state of being only afforded to the privileged – one of the topics I endeavour to engage with in my six poems.
As ever, thanks for reading. Do let me know what you’re working on at the moment, and if you’re into zines (!) and do, please, try to catch Pauline’s exhibition in Bath if you can.
Josephine Corcoran 
Sounds like a great collaboration on such a profound issue.
Would you be willing to share more detail of the techniques of making your zine pamphlet ie did you make it on a home computer? Which package did you use – just Word? Thinking I might have a go 🙂 x
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Yes, I just used Word. I will do another post about it, I think, to explain what I did!
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This sounds great. I once put together a tiny booklet on my laptop, so I could give out a few free copies (already published poems) to my Mothers’ Union group when I did a talk. It was very successful, but very fiddly. I used one of my own photos for the cover. I’d love to have another go sometime, so any advice would be very welcome.
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I will do a post! I learned from the internet
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[…] quick post in connection with my previous post about making a zine, since a few of you have asked. I searched ‘how to make a zine’ on […]
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[…] Josephine Corcoran, Poetry, art, and translation, in collaboration […]
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[…] my poems beyond that. I loved working with a translator, Lorena Pino Montilla. It was exciting to think of the possibilities for poetry beyond a collection, and bringing poetry, in English and in Spanish, into an art exhibition. It’s exciting to think […]
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[…] poems beyond that. I loved working with a translator, Lorena Pino Montilla. It was exciting to think of the possibilities for poetry beyond a collection, and bringing poetry, in English and in Spanish, into an art exhibition. It’s exciting to think […]
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] Today, we said goodbye to artist Pauline Scott-Garrett who died in early April. I was so glad to have known Pauline over the years, and honoured to collaborate with her last year when I wrote a zine of poems in response to her beautiful series of collage and intaglio prints, BORDERLAND, which engaged with a 2018 news story about a Salvadorian father forcibly separated from his six-year-old daughter at the US border. I wrote something about this project here. […]
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