| Title | The Troubled Lyricist |
| Artist / Creator | Bridget Elmer |
| Press Name | Flatbed Splendor |
| Place of Publication | Tallahasse, FL |
| Publication Date | 2008 |
| Author of Text | Poems by the artist. |
| Structure / Binding | Pamphlet stitch. |
| Medium / Materials | Handmade cotton and flax paper, Japanese kozo and waxed linen. Photopolymer plates printed from drawings by the artist. Handset type. |
| Number of Pages | 18 |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 4 x 7.75 x 0.125 inches (closed), 8 x 7.75 x 0.0625 (open) |
| Edition Size | 35 |
| Signed & Numbered | Yes |
This handmade chapbook resulted from a one-month experiment. In response to Pablo Neruda’s essay, Toward an Impure Poetry, and a challenge by comic artist Dylan Graham, the artist chose one object each day to contemplate with both images and words. The chapbook includes a selection of the resulting poems and drawings. Throughout this practice, the artist continually returned to the following passage. "It is good at certain hours of the day and night, to look closely at the world of objects at rest... From them flow the contacts of man with the earth, like a text for all troubled lyricists." (Neruda, xxi)
Artist Bio
Bridget Elmer is headquartered in Tallahassee, FL, where she is rebuilding her platen press, tuning up her 1966 flatbed truck, and retrofitting open source philosophy to book technologies. Bridget has studied book binding, letterpress printing, and printmaking at the Cooper Union, Center for Book Arts, Penland School of Crafts, and Asheville BookWorks. She will graduate in the spring of 2010 with her MFA in the Book Arts from the University of Alabama. Bridget is currently the Resident Artist at the Small Craft Advisory Press at Florida State University, where she is in the process of completing her creative thesis project and teaching undergraduate courses in Book Structures. In addition to her on-going work as Flatbed Splendor, Bridget recently co-founded a new project with Emily Larned, a.k.a. Red Charming. Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA) is an organization for those who make experimental or conceptual work with obsolete technology.