Spotlight: James Kochalka and Sydney Lea’s “LEAF”

Sydney Lea and James Kochalka began collaborating when Lea was named a Poet Laureate of Vermont and Kochalka was named Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont. For the piece below, Kochalka began by drawing six wordless panels using characters from his Fungus comic book series… to which Lea composed a poem. It can be read as a meditation on change, or on mortality.

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James Kochalka was named the first Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont in 2011. His most recent book for adults, Fungus: The Unbearable Rot of Being, is available from Retrofit Comics. His next book for children, Johnny Boo meets Dragon Puncher, is coming this summer from Top Shelf Productions. His work in comics has won the Eisner award, the Harvey award, and four Ignatz awards. He is also used to be kind of a local rock star in Burlington, VT. Sydney Lea’s No Doubt the Nameless (Four Way Books) will appear in 2016; he is author of eleven other volumes of poetry. A former Pulitzer finalist, a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright and Guggenheim Foundations, he was founder and longtime editor of New England Review. He has also published a novel, a collection of literary criticism, and four volumes of personal essays, most recently What's the Story? Short Takes on a Life Grown Long. Visit his blog here.

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