LET'S PLAY TELEPHONE!

The Telephone Project is an experiment in artistic dialogue and multimedia collaboration. The project placed 2 poets and 2 collagists in creative dialogue, with the resulting works presented at an offsite event hosted during the 2026 AWP Conference & Bookfair in Baltimore, MD.

The "game" proceeded as follows:

Poet #1 received a digital image of a physical collage crafted by TheStoryteller, Ashley-Devon (Collagist #1). The poet had one week to translate the collage into a poem.

The poem from Poet #1 was passed to Collagist #2, and the collagist had one week to translate the poem into a physical collage.

That collage was then passed to Poet #2, who also had one week to translate the visual narrative into a textual narrative.

Artists only saw the work that immediately proceeded theirs, only seeing all the works in unison during the showcase. During the final showcase at Vinyl & Pages, the four artists shared their work and dialogued with one another and the audience about messaging and communication, understanding and interpretation, and what is gained/lost in the human effort to relay information.

Meet the Artists

Collage #1

From the Firmament, A Beat Drops

At the 2026 NYC Poetry Festival, participants were invited to give poetry responses to the first collage in the Telephone Project series, “From the Firmament, A Beat Drops.” We got some really cool responses - check ‘em out below!