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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
“You look like pink,” began Medfield’s Geena Matuson, “The Girl Mirage.” She read her favorite poem, “Pink,” slowly and from memory, keeping her self-published pastel-colored book in her lap.
“Like opals and firecrackers. Like words describing translucence the eye cannot capture alone, but can only know exists in theory.”
Her audience, a refreshing mix of children and adults, sat in the Medfield Library’s Dailey Room to witness Geena’s book reading. Open-mouthed, stunned by the dreamy strings of words that flowed so perfectly together, the audience was fascinated by both Geena and her work.
“Inside [the book] is a strange, surreal, a seemingly nonsensical collection of poetic stories – because I didn’t know; are they poems? Are they stories? They’re both – and dreamy artwork that play with pattern and perception in my first book,” said Geena, glancing at the book’s back cover.
A MassArt film/video graduate, Geena combined her passion for writing and digital art to produce “Dadalectic: Waking Dream.” To combine her stories and poetry, along with her artwork, in one book, Geena took herself on the journey of self-publishing, learning how to do it each step of the way.
For her book’s title, Geena combined the words “Dada” and “dialectic,” but some members in the audience were unsure exactly what that meant.
“Long story short: It’s nothing. Dada is nothing and everything,” she said, offering some clarification. “It’s anti-art. It’s supposed to be about anti-establishment and anti-everything. We look at Renaissance art and sure, that’s art, but art can be anything.”
Many of the poems were written just before falling asleep at night, when she slips into a stage of half-consciousness, to be able to create an almost romantic feeling to the poems – even though one of the poems described Geena’s experience of being choked by a boa constrictor as an elementary student.
“I’m using nonsense to discuss the truth of opinions. The whole thing is that I tell a truthful story with my opinions. I’m having a truthful story with the reader, and it’s through an obscure lens of Dadaism.”
As she prepares to depart for Syracuse University to pursue her Masters in Journalism in the fall, Geena is confident that she will continue creating new poems, art, and short films. Her work can be found on her website, www.thegirlmirage.com.
