“Absconditum”
Collaborators Q&A: Artist Amy Meissner: I knew what it meant to abscond with something, but didn’t realize absconditum was the thing(s) one might abscond with or to. Poet Traci Brimhall: I love going to galleries and looking at work. I like to walk into a room and let myself get the emotional temperature of the work in the room and then move towards the piece that makes me the most afraid or bewildered.
Poet Traci Brimhall is the author of, most recently, Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, Poetry, and Best American Poetry. A 2013 NEA Fellow, she’s currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Kansas State University. Artist Amy Meissner lives and works on Dena’ina Homeland, a place now called Anchorage, Alaska. Her textile and craft-based studio practice combines traditional handwork, found objects, and abandoned textiles to reference the literal, physical, and emotional work of women.