Enlisting Whitman and Emerson

This commissioned work in 75 signed and numbered copies condenses, into a print, Angela Lorenz’s 2019 editioned artist’s game Enlisting Whitman – A Pro Memoria Game for Emerson and Whitman (CBA Collection Item Number: FA.SA6.2311). The 20 yellow faux Post- it notes reproduced here are selected from the 96 game cards created to convey Emerson’s influence on Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Players try to guess which author wrote which lists, while “The Answerer” holds the key, an artists’ book stored in the workman’s ditty bag pocket. If it is hard to guess who wrote each list, that is the point: Emerson indicated a need for new American poetry in his essay “The Poet” (1844) and Whitman followed his suggestions, including the use of lists.

Printed in the studios of Center for Book Arts by Roni Gross.

About the Artist

Visual artist Angela Lorenz (b. USA) resides in New England with annual stays in Bologna, Italy. Her work centers on material culture, visual culture and language, and uses humor as a mnemonic to aid memory. Lorenz’s watercolors, prints, multiples, mosaics and artist’s books live in over 100 public collections in the US and abroad, and have been widely exhibited.