Support American Zen

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My name is Travis and I write poems about the human experience. I work, and participate, in this civilization we're still cultivating. For the past 5 years, I've been writing a collection of poems titled American Zen. These poems are a connection with the geography and natural history of the western American landscape and presence. More than being about one specific section of land, these poems are a place where we all can find refuge from the world of distraction we often find ourselves in.

In May of 2022, I recorded the American Zen poetry album at Ancient Owl Audio in the woods of northern California. Featuring 17 poems from the larger collection, it was recorded with classical, acoustic, and 12-string guitar, as well as banjo, mandolin (all performed by Scott Hawkins), and nature recordings Sammy and I took in the wilderness on and around the studio property.

Using an album "storyboard", I wanted to create an album to guide the listener on a sonic journey that was slow, ecstatic, and true. A celebration where they can remember our wild roots and our shared eternal questions, musings, and gratitudes. Sammy and I worked on the final album for 6 months after the initial recording, completing it in November of 2022 and releasing American Zen on February 18, 2023.

I made this album because within the poems I felt the unmoving, raw emotion of my own humanity fighting for a place in our tumultuous, fast-moving world.

I turned the poems into an album to expand the engagement of senses, and I am turning the album into a short film for the same reason. This film will be a feast of wilderness, a celebration of story, and rest easy within the strange musings of life.

I am raising money to:

All money raised will go directly and only to these creative ends.

This is an opportunity to contribute to that old yearning for connection with the wild land we grew from. To remember that life is more than smartphones, inboxes, and technological ailments. We have a verdant world to be enraptured by.