Cantos-Thinking Vessels is part one of a text-based work documenting the collaboration process between poet Derek Mahon (1941-2020) and myself during our time together. The notebooks list and document the thought processes and development of the work we shared. Collected over ten years, the notebooks are treated as found text reframed and rewritten in the style of 'The Cantos of Ezra Pound' as an epic, non-rhyming, stream-of-consciousness, prose poem, and amount to a kind of self-portrait or fragmentary thought diary, exploring creativity, aesthetics, art, painting, expression, philosophy, climate change, being, politics and representation through times of inspiration, self-doubt, grief and trauma. Cantos-Thinking Vessels traces ideas through the development of the Vessels painting project.

This work was conceived as a visual document where layout and font are integral to the concept, comprising short paragraphs, sentences, lists and quotes. (The idea for this work came about after reading 'Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age', Columbia University Press, 2011, by Kenneth Goldsmith.) It is 8,200 words (56 pages)

This project was supported by an Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award 2022

Also, see artwork Vessels part 1 & Vessels part 2