{"id":590,"date":"2024-12-06T13:23:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T14:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/?p=590"},"modified":"2025-04-03T22:57:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T22:57:23","slug":"catherine-weiss-embraces-discomfort-in-their-book-of-poems-big-money-porno-mommy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/06\/catherine-weiss-embraces-discomfort-in-their-book-of-poems-big-money-porno-mommy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Weiss Embraces Discomfort in Their Book of Poems, \u2018Big Money Porno Mommy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rarely does a poet get to design the cover of their book of poems. And rarely does a book cover designer get to write the book for which they\u2019ve created a cover. Having such holistic creative freedom, power, and control is many an artist\u2019s pipe dream, yet it is one that recently came true for Catherine Weiss.<\/p>\n

The Northhampton, MA-based artist is set to release their third collection of poems this coming March, provocatively entitled Big Money Porno Mommy<\/em>. With a title like that, one needs an equally compelling cover, which Weiss was able to not only envision but also bring to life.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBig Money Porno Mommy<\/em> is about power and desire. It\u2019s about pornography and my choice to not become a mother. It\u2019s about the male gaze and how it\u2019s wielded. It\u2019s about all of these things in the context of my body, which happens to be a fat body,\u201d Weiss penned in a piece they wrote reflecting on the book and its cover. \u201cThe physical forms of those we love and lust after\u2014even the bodies we idealize\u2014they\u2019re all kind of ridiculous when you get close enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cover of Big Money Porno Mommy<\/em> encapsulates this playfulness, capturing both the grotesque and the organic beauty inherent to the human body. The ability to harmonize two ideas that might initially seem at odds with one another is central to Weiss\u2019 practice as a poet and something they were keen on evoking in their book\u2019s cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed the flesh to be forefront. I wanted to evoke fatness and nudeness but without a silhouette\u2014fatness as the text itself. Many people have instinctive reactions to the form of a fat body. I wanted this cover to elicit a reaction, but rather than othering the form, and projecting whatever preconceived notions about fatness they may have onto my book, I wanted to bring the audience in.\u201d<\/p>\n

After seeing the cover of Big Money Porno Mommy<\/em> and reading Weiss\u2019s initial thoughts on their process, I was eager to talk to the artist. My Q&A with Weiss, in which I dig even deeper into their process and their reconciliation of clashing concepts, is transcribed below.<\/p>\n

(Edited lightly for clarity and length.)<\/em> <\/p>\n

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The physical forms of those we love and lust after\u2014even the bodies we idealize\u2014they\u2019re all kind of ridiculous when you get close enough.<\/p>\n

Catherine Weiss<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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What\u2019s your process typically like for writing your poems?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I think about writing poems, I try to see if a poem can do more than one thing at a time. It\u2019s hard to write a poem that\u2019s just about one thing, I have found. When I sit down to write a poem, I have two ideas, and then maybe the third thing that comes out of it is the poem. So when I was thinking about designing this cover, I was similarly interested in having more than one idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cover is so striking. What was your thought process behind that design?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was also interested in having the typography contain this fleshiness, so you get the information from what the words literally say, but I also wanted the typography to give information as well. Having the title literally embodied in flesh was one way to do that. Then layering the little details of specificity onto the letters, like, Is there a belly button? Is that a tuft of hair?<\/em> Things that would both hopefully draw someone in to look, and also be a little bit like, Ooh, do I want to look at this?<\/em> To have that push and pull.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The typography definitely captures that two-things-at-once idea you\u2019re going for. It\u2019s pretty grotesque, but simultaneously warm and pillowy and even comforting which complicates that initial disgust. At what point in the writing process did you design the cover?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once I had about half of the poems, I said, Okay, well, this is a collection. This is going to be something.<\/em> And I had the title, and I kept writing poems to keep adding, so that\u2019s when I started brainstorming what the cover would possibly look like. I kept coming back to this idea of flesh letters and fat rolls. An early iteration looked more like Sharpie on my stomach, and I thought about having a photograph instead of doing it digitally. But at a certain point I realized I needed to learn the software to make my vision happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the things about writing the poems and<\/em> designing the cover is that I got to spend a lot of time with both of them. I got to spend a ton of time with this cover. I kept iterating and putting it in a drawer and then coming back to it as more poems got written.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Can you speak about that technical side of things in terms of the cover? What software did you use? What was your design process like?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Illustrator has a very simple tool that allows you to blow up text or other shapes to inflate them in this faux 3D space. Once I realized that tool was pretty simple and I could play with it by adding skin texture, I spent a lot of time finding the right skin texture to make it look as gross as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the shape of the letters was going to be, because I wanted it to be legible. The first iteration was much more blocky and the letters were separated from each other, so it looked a little bit more like someone had been chopped up. That wasn\u2019t quite right and that was also much harder to read.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t really spend much time sketching but iterating in the software. How far can I distort this letter pattern to make it legible and also to get the effect that I\u2019m looking for?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What was your thought process behind the colors of the cover, particularly the magenta-to-orange gradient background behind the flesh-toned lettering?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Until quite late in the process, I had a different background entirely. For a long time, it was a comforter, pillowcase sort of texture. Ultimately I didn\u2019t stick with that because it was just a stock photo that didn\u2019t really interact with the weight of the letters, and it was taking attention away from the letters themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wanted the cover as a whole to pop, so I knew I wanted something bright and cheerful, and I just love pink and orange. It\u2019s been a color combination that I\u2019ve been drawn to. Also, this is my third full-length collection, so I kept in mind my previous collection which was sort of a green. So, I thought, What do I want these books lined up on a shelf to look like?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Now that the poems and cover are all done and dusted, what would you say you\u2019re proudest of with what you\u2019ve created?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think letting myself sit with the uncomfortable. Even with the cover, being able to forefront the discomfort while not giving up the joy that is found in this collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This collection has a series of poems called \u201cThe Phone Sex Poem,\u201d and they tell a story about a bad relationship and a boyfriend who was addicted to phone sex. They\u2019re about the ramifications that it had on my life, and the reverberations going forward in terms of my relationship to sex and desire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the face of it, that was a really hard thing to write about. I\u2019d been aware that I\u2019d been choosing not to write about it for several books, and I think it was really important for me to find an entry point that was playful in order to talk about a difficult subject. I think I found a balance that not only isn\u2019t a bummer to read, but I also feel comfortable putting out into the world and telling my story in a way that feels holistic and worthwhile.<\/p>\n

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Author photo by Geneve Rege<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Look for Big Money Porno Mommy<\/em> by Catherine Weiss on shelves in March 2025.<\/p>\n

The post Catherine Weiss Embraces Discomfort in Their Book of Poems, \u2018Big Money Porno Mommy\u2019<\/a> appeared first on PRINT Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rarely does a poet get to design the cover of their book of poems. And rarely does a book cover designer get to write the book for which they\u2019ve created a cover. Having such holistic creative freedom, power, and control is many an artist\u2019s pipe dream, yet it is one that recently came true for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.storybooksaintbernards.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}