The Basement Tapes is a bold, experimental text comprising forty prose poems printed
on transparent celluloid sheets and accompanied by forty images in one box set. This
is Chen Poyu’s fifth book and the author’s first collaboration with artist Kuo Chien-Yu.
The “tapes” are produced through a purposively constrained method. Each prose
poem unfolds in two paragraphs, each holding a unique, unrepeated sample of sound.
At times, Chen completes the poem first, leaving Kuo to translate its resonances
in paint; at other times, the order is reversed. Kuo likens this process to a “game of
telephone,” a passing-on of sound and sense that changes at every turn.
While paired poems and paintings are not set side by side due to the limitations of
print, readers can participate in the creative process by reordering the texts into a
remix all their own.