Ugly Life Tarot
Artist
Ugly Life Tarot is an adaptation of a project called Rue Généreux that was created in 2020 as an ode to an “ugly” Montreal alley. The poems were posted in the alley with access to a QR code that led strangers to a website where they could respond to questions around individual and collective healing.
This provocation connects to values and ideas around the importance of collective and individual visioning in public space, an interrogation of the ugly/beauty binary, poetry as a map for transformation and resilience, and the generosity and compassion needed to explore connective tissues between the past, present and future.
Ugly Life Tarot asks: Where are the soft and human parts--the magic, the necessity, the joy and the pleasure--in what we perceive to be ugly spaces (memories and events) in the past, present and future of our shared lives?
Erin Lindsay is a multidisciplinary poet/creator, dramaturg and educator who values genre hybridity, collaboration, formal innovation through digital technologies and the interplay between poetry and performance, and pedagogy informed by interdisciplinary exploration. Erin has a background in Theatre and Ethics (University of Ottawa and University of Toronto), Communications and Media Studies (Concordia University), and an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She has taught and facilitated workshops with UBC, Concordia University, Thomas More Institute, St. Stephen’s University and Imago Theatre, is the former blog editor of carte blanche magazine, and a workshop facilitator with QWF’s Storyscaping project. To learn more about Erin and her work, visit www.crowlake.space. You can also check out her Instagram poetry account @crowlake.
Erin Lindsay
Find an ugly place.
Invitation
Go for a walk in your neighbourhood and find an ugly place. This could be an abandoned storefront, a run-down playground, an empty scrap field, a dilapidated gas station, a bog, a dirt hole, etc. The space should not be too densely populated, you should be familiar with it, and it should both disgust and intrigue you. Make sure you bring a notebook with you. Leave any technology behind.
Find three objects in the ugly space. These could be graffitti, a discarded coffee cup, the contents of a dumpster, a concrete block, a sign, etc. Study these three objects and take notes. Look at them from close up and from far away. Describe them in detail considering their texture, smell, and surroundings. Why did you choose this object? Does it remind you of anything else? Do the objects have anything in common? Do they elicit a feeling? What feeling?
Make a past, present, future Tarot card spread; you should do this pretty soon after your walk. Find three blank pages. At the top of the page, write Past on one sheet, Present on the next, and Future on the last sheet. Choose which object will be past, present and future and sketch them out on the page.
Use the data from your walk to create three 2- 3 sentence prose poems written in the second person, in a divinatory style, for example: “Listless and entwined in the arrangement, you see the world in unusual ways,” “You will reconfigure everyday objects and elemental substances,” “Find an aerial view of an inlet or bay with rushing edges.” Experiment with writing these in your notebook and when the message feels complete, write it out under the sketch of each past, present and future object to complete your ugly life tarot card.
Ask a question. Perform a reading of your three prose poems out loud to yourself or do a reading for someone else.