Marilyn McCabe, editor / producer

From the Boiler House

From the Boiler House, a collaborative poem/videopoem by the Boiler House poets, in residency at MASSMoCA, fall 2016.

Marilyn McCabe

Every day I sit to the page with the intention of being present to my experience of the world, its beauty and mystery, its horrors too, and to make something of that experience that transcends myself. The process of editing work is itself meditative, as I must sink deeply into the work, into my intention for the work, into the intention the work seems to claim for itself, and then move to form or shape it toward its clearest expression. The word contemplation means etymologically "from the sacred space." To make art is to seek to enter and work from the sacred space within the artist, and within the work itself.

The poets featured in “From the Boiler House” have been working together in residency at MassMoCA every fall since 2015, individually and collectively responding to the museum’s offerings, including the site itself of factory buildings and outbuildings such as the boiler house. Videopoem editor/producer Marilyn McCabe’s poetry has garnered her an Orlando Prize from AROHO, the Hilary Tham contest win from The Word Works resulting in publication of her book Perpetual Motion, and two artist grants from the NYS Council on the Arts. Her second book of poems is Glass Factory. Her poetry has been published in a variety of print and online literary magazines, and her videopoems and visual poems have been published online and shown in galleries. 

More on Marilyn McCabe's work can be found on our Links page.