Explores the echoes across time and space that link Carla Grandi’s book of poetry “Contraproyecto” (1985/1987) & Meredith Monk’s film and album “Book of Days” (1988).

The zine is a rare chance for English speakers to be introduced to Grandi’s work, with several poems translated from Spanish for the first time specially for the event.

“In a time of increasing authoritarianism, misogyny, and lethal polarization, we revisit these works to learn strategies of mourning and political defiance.
And to understand the appeal of medieval settings to capture repressive regimes and the subversive potentials of magic, myth, and madness. Conceived of at roughly the same time and yet under very different circumstances, both works interweave medieval storytelling and contemporary events to protest racial and political violence and to celebrate intellectual and physical survival. Carla Grandi wrote
“Contraproyecto” as a personal and affective response to the everyday restrictions and heinous violence of Augusto Pinochet’s regime in Chile, which barred her and many other leftists from teaching and publishing. Written and produced in the late 1980s, in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, and affected by the uncertainties and injustices of the Cold War, Meredith Monk’s film “Book of Days” shifts between a fictional medieval town and contemporary footage from New York City. With a soundtrack composed by the avant-garde artist and composer, and voiced by herself and a twelve-voice ensemble, the film deserves to be listened to as much as to be seen.”

A5, Sewnbound 20pp

Hopscpotch Reading Room, Cutt Press, 2025, Berlin