Written while fostering a newborn during Ohio’s Covid lockdown, Becca's contemporary "fraktur poems" (text illuminated with traditional folk art) speak to the grief, uncertainty, and awe of 2020: for Becca, processing the pandemic, being a new parent, and not knowing how her family's fostering story would resolve. Collaborator and visual artist Lynn Sommer “illuminated” Becca's poems while isolating in her studio because her husband was ill with Covid.
The original 1840s fraktur that inspired this 10-piece series was created by Johannes J. Amstutz, Becca’s Great(x3) Grandfather in the Sonnenburg Swiss Mennonite settlement in Kidron, OH (where both Becca and Lynn were raised).
Becca found the original fraktur considered to be his masterpiece stored at the Kidron Historical Society, and according to German scholars, the original is unique in its content compared to other frakturs of its time, and it was also created using an unusual combination of two different scripts: Kurrent and Sütterlin, which made it difficult for even experts to translate. In 2020, with Lynn's help, Becca finally found someone who could translate the fraktur's content, and she began a poem series using the original's “recipe poem” structure and shape as a template.
The text found in the original first appeared in the Der Christliche Botschafter (New Berlin, PA) in 1842 in German and was titled "To God alone the glory: A recipe to attain true beauty” (Trans. by Edward Quinter, 2020)
Written while fostering a newborn during Ohio’s Covid lockdown, Becca's contemporary "fraktur poems" (text illuminated with traditional folk art) speak to the grief, uncertainty, and awe of 2020: for Becca, processing the pandemic, being a new parent, and not knowing how her family's fostering story would resolve. Collaborator and visual artist Lynn Sommer “illuminated” Becca's poems while isolating in her studio because her husband was ill with Covid. (https://www.lynnsommer.com/)
Hear Becca read the whole series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G9_p2bCN6w
Fraktur by Lynn Sommer: Find more information about this hand-painted work and how to purchase cards or prints here.
"The author behind new lyrics for this shape-note Southern Harmony tune is poet & songwriter Becca J.R. Lachman. Becca began drafting these lyrics while a 2004 Melodious Accord fellow with Alice Parker, finishing them nearly two decades later and pairing them with Parker's most beloved hymn setting in the hopes of inviting a new generation to fall in love with it and Parker's work. The last verse fittingly closes: “And if music is God breathing, take a holy breath and sing!”
*For copyright permission to use “Could It Be That God Is Singing” from the 2020 Voices Together hymnal, please contact One License: https://www.onelicense.net.
Visual art and concept by Astrid Kaemmerling (https://astridkaemmerling.art/); Poetry and concept by Becca J.R. Lachman.
This project came into existence by sending emails, art, photographs, texts, stanzas, and snail-mail letters between Athens (OH), San Francisco, Johnson (VT), and New Orleans between 2015-20. Fully completed in 2022 after a halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the final artifact includes a poetry book, 14 full-color multi-media reproductions with an accompanying booklet, and a process book documenting our 7-year collaborative creation process.
Collectively, the project navigates the topic of “home-building”-- be it physical, reproductive, metaphorical, or structural–and plays with time and space in an attempt to enter our experiences related to the evolving (female) body as home.
Visual art and concept by Astrid Kaemmerling (https://astridkaemmerling.art/); Poetry and concept by Becca J.R. Lachman.
This project came into existence by sending emails, art, photographs, texts, stanzas, and snail-mail letters between Athens (OH), San Francisco, Johnson (VT), and New Orleans between 2015-20. Fully completed in 2022 after a halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the final artifact includes a poetry book, 14 full-color multi-media reproductions with an accompanying booklet, and a process book documenting our 7-year collaborative creation process.
Collectively, the project navigates the topic of “home-building”-- be it physical, reproductive, metaphorical, or structural–and plays with time and space in an attempt to enter our experiences related to the evolving (female) body as home.
Becca with creative partner/collaborator, Astrid Kaemmerling.
SpeakUpWoMen Event, Athens OH
At Literary Citizenship Festival, guest writer, Otterbein University.
Photo courtesy of Otterbein University's Office of Alumni.
An interactive series of readings and discussions about what it means to build a literary life, the festival featured some of the Creative Writing Program's most successful recent alumni, all of whom read from their work, participated in an "Inside the Writer's Studio" live interview, and led our explorations in a Literary Citizenship Symposium with area high school students, community members, and college students.
(L to R) Terry Hermsen, Jen Knox, Jennifer Roberts, Becca J.R. Lachman, Chuck Salmons, Ladan Osman. Photo: Otterbein University.
Working with area high school students, Otterbein University.
photo by Becca J.R. Lachman
Crane Hollow Preserve, SE Ohio
Powell's Books, Portland OR
photo: Powell's Books
from "The World From Up Here," The Apple Speaks (2012)
photo: Otterbein University , 2011 Young Alumni Awards