The Caterpillar
Artist Statement
1. I want to be a writer, realized that the Wonderland Awards hasn't awarded a prize in writing in years. Thought maybe I could change that.2. Grew up with Lewis Caroll. I liked Jabberwocky, it was darker, sinister, sardonic.
a. I thought maybe I could also write a dark mirror of the characters in Alice in Wonderland.
b. Experimented with form and style to keep the spirit of a Carrollian tinkering with language.
3. I was taken with the Caterpillar.
a. Not sure why but he was the character I remembered the least and the best.
b. I smoke cigarettes, he smokes a hookah. Took some creative license to make him my own.
c. I enjoyed his disdainful way of speaking with Alice. He had nowhere else to be and no one else to talk to, but she was still not enough. What was he thinking? What was she thinking? He said, she said, he thought, she thought, etc. etc. etc.
4. Perused the Liddell Book of Fiction: Part 2.
a. Marveled at the creativity of youth, the commitment to nostalgia and ephemerality required.
b. Am grateful that the Cassady collection exists. Primary emotion: amusement, and satisfaction that this is the correct emotion for Carroll to evoke.
5. Scared that I was too serious, but there's a lot absurd about the serious.
