Afterwords(s): Take a Book/Leave a Book

Afterwords(s): Take a Book/Leave a Book is a found poem series by Richard Holeton. As Holeton explained in his ELO 2019 presentation, the series was inspired by Joan Retallack's poem "Not a Cage" (1990), in which she recycled lines of text from books that she was discarding. Instead of using books from his personal library, Holeton sourced the texts from his local "take a book/leave a book" book sharing box. Each line of the poem is taken from the final passage of a different book. He completed the work over ten days, swapping out a new book each day, to create the finished 10-line poem.

The print version of Afterword(s) appeared in print form in Forklift, Ohio #37 and the multimedia version was exhibited at the &Now 2018 Festival of Innovative Writing.