Carrie McGath

Chicago, Illinois

My collage work is very much rooted in my life as a poet. I often turn to collage to inspire poems and to work through imagery I aim to work with in my written work. Collage has been a medium for me to feel a physical connection as I construct works that are often confessional in nature and a way to work through trauma and to work through both mental and physical pain. Poking through drawers in antique stores and at estate sales, I seek out found photographs that speak to me in some way and those found photographs become the foundation of my collage work. The exception to using found photographs of strangers is my work, Bipolar, where my face and my aunt’s face are split to become one illustrating our shared family resemblance and our shared struggle with bipolar disorder.

For me, the act of finding, cutting, and arranging is very much like the composition of poetry for me as writing a poem is also a seeking that ends in an efficient, meaningful arrangement of imagery. The creation of a collage and the creation of a poem are very visceral activities for me so collage is often a start to a poem as it gives me an entry into what I am aiming to express with words.

Carrie McGath is a poet, visual artist, and art critic living in Chicago. She has self-published several limited edition, handmade poetry chapbooks and her poetry collection, Small Murders, was released in 2006 from New Issues Poetry and Prose. Carrie is at work on her second full-length poetry collection titled The Luck of Anhedonia. She is currently a PhD Candidate in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.