“If there is such a thing as poetic archaeology, this is it.”
This is a fascinating little book that I randomly picked up at the Dollar Tree, of all places. Occasionally, hidden among the cheap paperback Bibles and children’s books, you can find a remaindered, genuine gem in the book aisle—which is why it’s always one of the first places I check. Noting the publisher right off the bat is usually the best way to clock whether something is going to be high-quality or not, and this volume was no exception.
Aug 9—Fog is a wonderfully strange book because of Kathryn Scanlan’s unique approach to how it came to be. The project grew from a highly specific obsession that she and I apparently share: strangers’ diaries. Scanlan picked up the diary of an 86-year-old woman at a rural Illinois estate auction. The diary originally covered five years of the woman’s life, from 1968 to 1972, and Scanlan spent fifteen years editing, rearranging, and sculpting the entries into little thought-paintings.
The resulting book is a collage: a single sentence here, a paragraph-sized image there, occasionally a few full pages, and then back to a lone fragment. Together, they meander beautifully through the seasons, the diarist’s relationships with others, and her connection to nature.
Scanlan does a remarkable job of presenting the extraordinary in the ordinary, capturing the fragmentation of memory and the quiet speed with which aging, time, and death weave in and out of our lives—all while the weather marches on and we go about buying canned hams.
A gorgeous, slim, and entirely unique volume, Aug 9—Fog is a highly inventive, profound piece of found poetry.
Garrett Zecker 