Reader's Art 12: Kendra Greene

Reader's Art 12: Longing for Home  Texan, Kendra Greene, comes with a story: "When my sister bought her first house, its sale came on the condition that she take everything in the house. There were still clothes in the closet, food on the counter, dentures in the bathroom—everything just as it was when someone came to evacuate the 87 year old owner from the life he’d been living alone. There were also messages. Throughout the house: a veritable ledger of oil changes scrawled on the garage door; the words “cold backward” written on the wall above a faucet; and 93 pieces of paper scattered in the shelves next to a black rotary phone.

These notes were written on the back of manila envelopes, grocery bags torn into pages, a receipt, white envelopes opened at their seams and pressed flat. They read like transcripts or monologues. They remark variously on the quality of Australian wine and the cost of Chinese dinners, but mostly they chronicle the writer’s failing faculties, his fears about aging, and an intense loneliness. After four decades in one place, his home has become something to escape. In his notes he longs for a new place, a new home, and a life once more among people.

This book, Noteworthy, represents a selection of the 93 notes. The original notes have been scanned and reproduced as photocopies on Bellbrook, Mohawk, and Hammermill papers, with hand-set stamping, red ink, and grocery bag covers."

Reader's Art 12: Longing for Home
March 16- April 26, 2012