Four Letter Words
Michael Kearney (author)
Djohan Hanapi (illustrator)
Setsuko Adachi (contributor)
Priyageetha Dia (contributor)
Lim Lee Ching (contributor)
has at its core a unique concept of the collaborative effort. The author/poet, Michael Kearney, came up with the idea for a book of poetry and retinal art over twenty years ago. Inspired by William Blake's
Songs of Innocence and Experience
, Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman's collaborations, and Roland Barthes' notion of 'The Death of the Author', Kearney envisioned a work where the only communication between the poet and the artist would be the artist's readings of the poems. After a long search, Kearney found Delere Press, who ventured to take on the challenging concept. The press placed Kearney's poems with risograph artist Djohan Hanapi of Knuckles & Notch. Hanapi created his illustrations sans communication with Kearney until after the project was completed. The result is a work where the poems and illustrations can be examined/enjoyed as stand-alone pieces of art, or as a whole, which exposes the pitfalls of any attempt at forming a tight, concise, interpretation of these pieces.
is a work that is open to the possibility of a myriad of readings; it allows each reader to discover their own meaning(s), and perhaps also discover something(s) about themself.