If your ethic carries even a hint of DIY, it’s likely you’ve already heard about Etsy, the notoriously indie online marketplace for all that’s holy in the world of handmade. Etsy pushes the idea that we can all make things and a living at the same time, and that annihilating middlemen is the path to a sustainable and visionary economy. Whether it’s crocheted head adornments, Dia de los Muertos cufflinks, or taxidermy-themed housewares you seek, it’s unlikely that Etsy will disappoint. But what happens if you’re looking for more than miniature red velvet cupcakes? What happens if your heart’s desire looks more like magnetic poetry or a fountain pen whose quill dares never to run dry?
Enter the search term “literature” on Etsy, and your results will number in the many-thousands. Refine your search so that you’re only culling from that which is handmade, (because you should be buying your vintage lit from book and mortar bookshops, right?), and you’ll generally knock your results down to a couple thousand. Take a moment, now, to bask in the unequivocal variety that cascades down your screen. Here lies one of the bounties and banes of all community websites: self-attribution. Sellers on Etsy dictate their own tags for the items they list, and undeniably, members of our species don’t always agree about what certain words mean. Within the world of Etsy, this means that you’re bound to run face first into both the agreeably expected as well as the exultantly unforeseen.
Let me warn you–you’re going to see a lot of maimed and cut-up books. They will have found rebirth as secret boxes, canvases, and things heart-shaped. Pages torn will be ensconced in one-inch pins, in pendants, and in frames. Tiny glass vials will hold, in pieces, your favorite lines of Poe. Find grace in the fact that, for the most part, you will be spared the gore of inky spills and shredded remnants of the canon. This is what we call upcycling.
Next, you’re going to read a lot of quotes. They’ll be on t-shirts, magnets, stickers, and even more pins. You’ll find many authors unaccredited, because one of the favored pastimes of literati is taking note of all the moments that prove its members are of a secret society that knows more good lines than any other. Or, get quippy. Need people to know you’re serious about your syntax? Get a “Grammar Police” pin to identify thyself. Want your offspring to demonstrate how very in-the-know you are? Acquire a shirt proclaiming him or her “Mr. Darcy’s Love Child.” Stud your leather with “fat books are so damn sexy!” or “i am a cautionary tale.” Press, savagely, upon thy bosom, the burning visage of Bukowski.
What you might love more than anything else here, though, is what follows interpretation. Have you ever wondered what “Curiouser and curiouser” smells like? Will your highest hopes be manifest after you’ve burned through an Oscar Wilde prayer candle? If you bathe yourself with One Hundred Year of Solitude, will you find it your fate? And I have to know–would you ornament your pulse points with the oil of the Torture Garden?
When Etsy says “literature,” it does so in either the most literal sense (not to torment you again with the image of books torn limb from limb), or in the most ideological (oh, how we love our Ophelias, our fleurs du mal, and our bell jars). Dig deeper in what’s bookish here, and you can traverse a captivatingly motley landscape of zines, handmade blank journals, and ostrich feather pens. But linger too long, and you might find it advisable, nay, crucial to get thee a hollowed book outfitted with a flask. At once.
by Patricia Cram
an Editorial Assistant for Black Clock and an MFA Writing candidate at CalArts
