My collection of Face Books in various states of openness. Clockwise from top left: "Origin Story: Paola," 2014; "I Don't Remember Asking You," 2016; "You Are What You Tweet," 2018; "Such a Miracle," 2021; "My Head is Filled with Butterflies," 2022. Made with a variety of materials, including board, paper, yarn, thread, Tyvek, Sculpey, and candy wrapper trash. Photo by Marlayna Demond.

L-R: Such a Miracle (2021) and My Head is Filled With Butterflies (2022), both made with board, paper, yarn, Sculpey, Tyvek, and thread. These are made to resemble myself and my dear artist friend Lenett "Mama Nef" Partlow-Myrick.

You Are What You Tweet (2018). This book's head is stuffed with candy and fast food wrappers, and the mouth opens to reveal an accordian book full of tweeted/deleted texts sent by Donald Trump.

Such a Miracle (2020-21) is the latest in my series of people-based books. This one is more autobiographical, featuring a haiku that speaks to the mystifying and hopeful nature of creativity. The haiku goes like this: Such a miracle / synapses stretch, lightning strikes -- brain to pen to here. The book is made primarily of board, paper, thread and yarn with embroidered cursive text.

Such a Miracle (2020-21) is the latest in my series of people-based books. This one is more autobiographical, featuring a haiku that speaks to the mystifying and hopeful nature of creativity. The haiku goes like this: Such a miracle / synapses stretch, lightning strikes -- brain to pen to here. The book is made primarily of board, paper, thread and yarn with embroidered cursive text.

This face book contains a man-splain-y sonnet titled "I don't remember asking you"

Portrait book featuring the image and a poem about a local art student. Her head opens up to reveal coptic-bound pages. Made in 2014. More here: http://kineticprose.com/2014/09/21/pop-up-portrait-of-paola/

Different Lives, One Shared Spine: a co-created accordion book by Jenny O'Grady and Lenett Partlow-Myrick. Pictured: four poetry panels created by Jenny O'Grady using embroidery and collage on hand-made paper.

Panel One: On my friendship with artist Lenett Partlow-Myrick.

Panel Two: On the generations that made me.

Panel Three: On the creative and caring influence of my mother.

Panel Four: On the creative spirit of the farm where I grew up.

Detail from panel four of my half of Different Lives, One Shared Spine, showing embroidered sorghum plans in rows from the farm where I grew up. The rows are made from newspaper stories I wrote at my hometown paper during the summers in college. This was a project co-created by myself and artist Lenett Partlow-Myrick, where we each made four accordion panels in response to prompts about our shared lives.

Lenett's panels, with her personal responses to the same prompts.

A quick video to show how my book functions.

Book opened to show first two stanzas of the poem, "Sure of Heart," and the embroidered organs within the plastic rib cage.

With hand for scale. The rib cage is made of four pieces of shrunken polystyrene plastic, and sewn together in a gate-style double coptic bind. The paper and thread-embellished organs peek out from within.

I used grocery bags for the organs, embroidering details with cotton thread, adding color with watercolor and marker, and making it glisten with a coat of glue.

Agnes Matzerath (the mother), Oskar (the son), and Anna Bronski (the grandmother). Photo by Marlayna Demond.

The plates of his poem reflect the lies and memories of his life, etched on his bones like scrimshaw...

Oskar, the unreliable narrator of the book, wills himself to stop growing at age three.

Eventually, out of grief or madness, she poisons herself by eating eels caught by her husband.

And then you were born...

Anna's skirts are the pages of the book.

The underside of the horseshoe crab. The "book lungs" pull back to reveal a poem about the crabs as living fossils. The legs and tail move freely. Made in 2013. More on the book here: http://kineticprose.com/2013/04/22/living-fossil-book/

The underside of the horseshoe crab. The "book lungs" pull back to reveal a poem about the crabs as living fossils. The legs and tail move freely. Made in 2013. More on the book here: http://kineticprose.com/2013/04/22/living-fossil-book/

Common yellowthroat, ovenbird, wood thrush, brown creeper, American woodcock, black and white warbler

From "Unfriendly Skies: Birds, Buildings and Collisions" at the Silber Art Gallery, spring 2015.

This was for the Amplified Cactus project, through which writers and artists responded to questions. In this case the question was Why am I attracted to stimulation that destabilizes me? My response was Three Studies. Each “study” within the wallet-inspired book is composed of a poem about a moment of destabilization (which slides neatly into the wallet-style construction) and an accompanying chart. The first spread contains a poem about how I chew my thumb ragged when I read. So, the line chart follows the “violence toward thumb” in relation to a thriller story arc. The second poem is about the gross feeling you get when you’ve spent too much time looking people up on Facebook. So, the accompanying chart — a relationship map — shows the pathways to follow to people of your past, both healthy and not. The final poem is about a family relationship, and involves a Venn diagram, a shape I never thought I’d include in a poem, much less embroider.

This is a dos-a-dos book, which means you can read it rightside up, or upside down. In one direction, it focuses on SKY, and the clouds and birds you might see there. On the flip side, it focuses on SEA, where the reader sees an underwater seascape. Sea/Sky is made of a variety of fabrics.

This was for the Amplified Cactus project, through which writers and artists responded to questions. In this case the question was Why am I attracted to stimulation that destabilizes me? My response was Three Studies. Each “study” within the book is composed of a poem about a moment of destabilization (which slides neatly into the wallet-style construction) and an accompanying chart. The first spread contains a poem about how I chew my thumb ragged when I read. So, the line chart follows the “violence toward thumb” in relation to a thriller story arc. The second poem is about the gross feeling you get when you’ve spent too much time looking people up on Facebook. So, the accompanying chart — a relationship map — shows the pathways to follow to people of your past, both healthy and not. The final poem is about a family relationship, and involves a Venn diagram, a shape I never thought I’d include in a poem, much less embroider.

This was for the Amplified Cactus project, through which writers and artists responded to questions. In this case the question was Why am I attracted to stimulation that destabilizes me? My response was Three Studies. Each “study” within the book is composed of a poem about a moment of destabilization (which slides neatly into the wallet-style construction) and an accompanying chart. The first spread contains a poem about how I chew my thumb ragged when I read. So, the line chart follows the “violence toward thumb” in relation to a thriller story arc. The second poem is about the gross feeling you get when you’ve spent too much time looking people up on Facebook. So, the accompanying chart — a relationship map — shows the pathways to follow to people of your past, both healthy and not. The final poem is about a family relationship, and involves a Venn diagram, a shape I never thought I’d include in a poem, much less embroider.

This project is part of Container's Multitudes series, which invites writers and artists to transform the same object into works of visual and literary art. In this series, participants were invited to interpret a vintage metal lunchbox. When I saw my lunchbox for the first time, I was SO excited. I have always loved the packaging for Cracker Jacks -- especially the tiny folded joke prize booklets. I love the little structures, and I adore the fact that the jokes are always terrible. Thinking on this, I was reminded of the way, as kids in the cafeteria, we would try to make each other laugh so hard we'd spray our milk out of our mouths (or, worse, our noses). Thus, this project was born. I use fabrics and Tyvek a lot in my work, so I decided it would be a fun challenge to make caramel corn out of yarn knots and Sculpey peanuts. If you dig into the pile of popcorn, you'll find the Cracker Jack prize -- an embroidered envelope inviting you to "Guess What's Inside?" Inside the envelope is a joke book containing my favorite bad joke in the world: What's brown and sticky? (Answer: A stick.) Assuming you're "eating" the popcorn, you're also "drinking" the milk inside the Thermos. And since the joke is so ridiculously funny/bad, the poem inside the Thermos (written on a spiral of droplet-covered white Tyvek) is a haiku about losing said milk to the hilarity. I used a full skein of wool blend yarn to make 300 popcorns; Sculpey clay to make 7 tiny peanut beads; white Tyvek, tan paper, embroidery floss, cotton thread, and glue.

A play on the Apple Watch made with paper and polystyrene plastic, this book contains a short poem about the parts of life (heart, mind, etc.) the watch might "track" for you, along with illustrations of those life icons. This book was a part of the "Beyond the Margins" display at Loyola University in 2016.

A play on the Apple Watch made with paper and polystyrene plastic, this book contains a short poem about the parts of life (heart, mind, etc.) the watch might "track" for you, along with illustrations of those life icons. This book was a part of the "Beyond the Margins" display at Loyola University in 2016.