This book is composed of yellow sheets made by recycling pages of old legal pads using the classic make-paper-at-home-with-the-blender technique, then held together with a loose binding of gray leather cord.
The text is a poem I wrote using the poetic form called Pirouette.
The pirouette is a 10-line poem with 6 syllables in each line; no rhyme or metric pattern is required. Lines 5 and 6, called “the turn-around,” contain the same words in the same order, but the punctuation and capitalization may vary.
This particular one is about some similarities between the process of rebuilding a life transformed by crisis and the process of making recycled paper using the blender … and that those similarities are not lost on me.
“Not lost on me”
Flashing lights, loud shouting,
and worse, defined the last
day of our Good Old Days.
In slow steps, a new life?
Put it back together.
Put it back together:
Torn shreds of old junk (mail)
Scraps of joy (confetti)
Add tears; blend with strength.
Something new is pulled out.
© Elizabeth Barr (2026)
This project is in response to the May 2026 prompt from #areyoubookenough_poetry, hosted by Editions Studio.
