The Enduring Question of Artistic Permanence: Ann E. Michael on Ren Powell’s Impermanence

Suppose we question the notion of “book,” what the word signifies in the early 21st century, and what it is physically, if anything. Until recently, there was no reason to qualify what we categorize as a book; but the definition is likely to be broader and to encompass more in 2022 than in Medieval Europe or Japan, or ancient Rome. Is an e-book a book? Surely we can answer yes. What form of book is most permanent requires a different set of criteria, however. Paper’s flammable, calfskin gets eaten by rodents; is the “cloud” any less liable to decay? What manner of art lasts longest—and suppose that what persists longest physically is merely mediocre? How can future generations, should there be any, determine the value of whatever art or literature survives the coming plagues and disasters? The questions are dizzying to consider.

And yet—these questions rose in my thoughts when I encountered Ren Powell’s recent chapbook Impermanence (Mad Orphan Lit, 2021) and Powell’s parallel video (https://vimeo.com/526611304). The book synthesizes poems, photographs, sculpture, handwriting, and color in a vivid collaboration with different aspects of the speaker’s self. It presents itself as a physical-digital experiment because the author presents her text in multiple forms: handmade, hand-bound art-object chapbook, paperback book with color prints, and video-podcast. The “reader” thus can choose to engage with Powell’s poetry and visuals on several levels. Whether these multiple encounters complicate, clarify, enhance, or intensify the audience’s experience will vary from viewer to viewer; I found the synthesis rewarding, because Powell’s visuals increased my curiosity about the poem’s exploratory intent. I should note that I could have as easily changed the apostrophe and said the poems’ intent, since it is not clear whether Impermanence is one poem or a collection of brief lyrical poems (the book does contain a Table of Contents). 

A physical-visual aspect of this book is thematic in terms of its design and uses of image. The poet designed the book and created the graphics herself, so there is a coherent purposefulness even in the little inconsistencies. Some of the handwritten graphics vary slightly from the typeset poem on the same or opposite page, and this effect creates a sort of book-matching that recalls the drafting process in both visual art and poetry. On right-hand pages throughout, oddly surreal photos of a white, plaster-and-papiêr machê bust, resting in natural surroundings, are overlaid by handwritten phrases. The term “illustrations” doesn’t quite fit these altered photos, since they don’t illustrate the text as much as add possibilities or layers, creating juxtapositions with the language Powell uses in the poem. The online audiovisual version of Impermanence transforms these collage-like layerings through sound, movement, and verbal intonation in the voiceover as the poet reads.

Which brings me to the words as they appear in the book, where the poems sit on the leaves more or less conventionally—or within conventional book-like parameters—and use line breaks, spacing, and punctuation consistent with contemporary poetry. The opening lines assert that “we are the stories, /and our bodies books” and subsequently evoke mortality in our eventual un-becoming (of both book and body). From there, the poems’ imagery switches from human bodies to forest floor and back again continually, pushing curiosity about language and story:

An anecdote becomes fiction

with tiny, twig-like claws

scratching the palm of your hand

a quiver of downy barbs

a ticking-tiny lifespan:

catch it now — quill on vellum

Many of the verses pose unexpected questions. If a person is an origami box, she asks, “who turned you over/ and over — running a / bone folder along/ your once-open body / to close you in/ on yourself?” The questioner seems to hope that at least some part of that turned-in and closed-over person stays in the world. But can anything endure? In a brief afterword, Powell writes that the bust used for the photos “was supposed to break up in the waterfall during filming.” Spoiler alert…

The very concept of art’s impermanence, human impermanence, feels like thwarting to some artists, while others relish art of the moment—ephemeral, transitional, immediate. In her various approaches to language as physical-visual-auditory, kinetic, and embodied, Ren Powell seems compelled, in Impermanence’s several forms, to explore where such artistic methods overlap. She likewise invites us to explore the whole idea of any permanent physical object: for example, a book.

Writing a “book review” of this project feels dizzying. But it’s the kind of dizziness that gets me asking questions about why the body feels that way, why some people like the feeling and others don’t—and what do we mean by permanence, and might we also celebrate its opposite?

Ann E. Michael is a poet and educator. She directs the writing center at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA, and has authored five chapbooks (most recently Barefoot Girls) and two longer collections (Water-Rites and the forthcoming The Red Queen Hypothesis). She's also a long-time blogger on poetry, philosophy, and gardening/ecology. https://annemichael.blog