How this site works is that I send a photo of a piece of litter to a writer somewhere in Canada and they respond in any form.
Those are the instructions: you may respond in any form.
Most often it’s poetry or short fiction or personal essay. On a few occasions the response is another image. Debbie Ridpath Ohi and Kevin Sylvester come to mind. In the case of Marthe Jocelyn, she asked if I could send, not a picture but an ACTUAL PIECE OF LITTER so that her response could be something (litter-ally) made from the object. I tried to find something that a) wasn’t overly disgusting, and b) easy to mail.
The litter gods were kind.
This is what I found.
I popped it in the mail, not beginning to imagine what it would become.
This is what happened next.
“Visual Literacy is an earlier & more intuitive skill than reading; kids recognize faces, objects, pictures, and logos, long before they can understand text. Visual literacy inspires the same interpretive skills that reading eventually will — to find meaning (and humour) in what you see.” ~ Marthe Jocelyn
♦
Marthe Jocelyn has written — and sometimes illustrated— fifty books for young readers. Her pictures are collages made of paper, fabric, and found bits & bobs. She has lived mostly in New York City and Stratford, Ontario.
Website: marthejocelynbooks.com
Instagram: @scissorhouse
♦♦♦
The Litter I See Project 