Cantos-Thinking Vessels is part two of a text-based artwork which takes visual art notebooks collected over ten years as found text, reframing and rewriting them in the style of 'The Cantos of Ezra Pound', as an epic, non-rhyming, stream-of-consciousness, prose poem, where thought processes reveal a kind of creative self-portrait or fragmentary thought diary. The work explores ideas about creativity, aesthetics, art, painting, philosophy, expression, climate change, politics and representation through times of inspiration, self-doubt, grief and trauma. Cantos-Thinking Vessels traces ideas through the development of the Vessels painting project. The notebooks were started in 2014 as a dialogue with poet Derek Mahon and continued after he died in 2020.

This work was conceived as a visual document where layout and font are integral to the concept, comprising short paragraphs, sentences, lists and quotes. The idea for this work came about after reading 'Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age', Columbia University Press, 2011, by Kenneth Goldsmith. It is 8,200 words (56 pages).

This project was supported by an Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award 2022

Also, see artwork Vessels part 1 & Vessels part 2