Season's Greetings

November seems to have a different character each year in Colorado. One year, the leaves may still be green, and if like last year, trees were covered in snow. Actually in October of 2011, we had one of those early snowfalls, with the leaves still on the trees, and my apple trees still full of bright red apples! My maple tree in front was badly broken, but the apple trees held up very well.

The above scene was one of twenty-five from various places I have lived, that I have used in a book of haiku I am writing, representing changes of landscape and weather throughout the year. I am using fifty haiku poems. The images are not strictly illustrations of the verses. The sequence of both poems and photographs is generally from the start of a year to the end.

The following is a poem I am quite excited about:

Gathering Fragments                                 

Illuminated writing decorates black velvet

in her open-eyed dreams. It is one a.m.

Diverse innovations congeal from disparate

sources::  an assemblage of materials suggest

new constructions used in new ways. She is

wrapped by diverse threads, uncoiling from

the universe, wrapping her gently in a cocoon

of delight. The meanings are in a new tongue.

The woman can feel herself morphing

in the darkness but she cannot sleep.

Excitement boils in her blood, anxious as she is

to learn her new identity, what new creature

is shape-shifting within this matrix?

Her heart whispers, a gift is coming.

The confettied particles fall faster than

she can grasp them in her  hands:: to hold them

she must juggle in constant sequence.

Like leaves they blow before the wind.

Weightedness is needed to make them fly.

The woman has come before her time,

and her body fails before time catches her up.

She surrenders into now. She is herself a

flying scrap. The wind lifts her into her new

incarnation. Faster and faster the fragments

fall into her mind. Hands on her head, the shape

is like a satellite dish, a funnel. She sees

collages forming in her lap. Bits and pieces

grow from her fingers, gathered from living fully,

form patterns connected by intuition, layers

experienced through multiple spirals of time.

 The exercise for Greeley Poetry Club was to stretch in one's approach, by using methods to encourage divergent thinking, such as to generally collect fragments of poems-suggested over a period of time- phrases, words, images and write them down, and then to put them into a sequence of related ideas. This tactic was one called "Chasing Poems."

It was adapted by Mary Lauck, from Writing Poetry; Creative and Critical Approaches by Chad Davidson and Gregory Fraser.

I loved the surrealistic result, and also the delight I felt while noticing strange synchronicities emerge over the period of time I paid attention. I was sorting my books, and looking for missing books that might relate to making hand-made books. The books I was looking for appeared from other book cases, like fragments, and also art images literally fell out of some shelves as if to make me notice them. Having an open mind allows for connections between different ideas to occur, without having a linear goal in mind, both in the process of writing and in art.

The process ended with two poems emerging along with about a hundred approaches for making hand made books. And one large bookshelf is now organized!

Writing and Images in this post are the © property of Ruth Zachary.

WRITING ABOUT WRITING

Artist- Speak.

.

You might think an artist would write and talk

in artist-speak, art being so ingrained.

You might expect the terminology

of pigment, tools and techniques to be

genetically imprinted in the gray matter of

language, and no manual of technical terms

would be required.

.

For me it isn’t so.

It’s like the discussion of regional sub-cultures.

You can’t hear the dialect rolling out between

your lips, but you speak it, and what you say

or do as your art expresses your world,

your milleau, your culture, and unwittingly

you are it from the inside out and whatever

comes out of you is of that world,

.

whether you see or hear it or not.

.

Still, that walnut shaped hemisphere sprouts,

blossoms into trees, flowers, hands with

green leaves growing from branching fingers,

vining out to reshape and embellish

the surface of an ever-expanding universe.

.

The creator, the creation impacts that universe

interactively. It becomes the artist, the artist

becomes the universe, re- forming the other.

What is seen is transcribed. What is known

is translated into new language, descriptors

of visual wonders that others might see;

but expressions of color, movement, balance,

rhythm, more, can never be fully conveyed

into that old language, to those without

that special sight .

Words fall short,

.

because visual art is a different tongue.

.

Some workshop leader once told the group I was in not to write about writing. Others do say to write about art. I gave a presentation a year or two ago to the Greeley Poetry Club about many poets who

have written about art.

.

I find it is a great stimulus to write about a painting. The poem above was prompted by knowing I am an artist, and yet I don't write about art very much. I do convey imagery in my writing, but use words to do so, and often fail to find metaphors in the materials and techniques of art.

.

Hmmm- maybe I should use that as an exercise. I think I'll try it. How about you?

.

.

Writing and Images are the sole ©Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

IN YOUR DREAMS

Sometimes a dream is a subject for a poem. I woke up one morning thinking about a friend, and wondering if I had failed to respond to her when she needed comfort. Dreams often present ideas for poems, and often the images in dreams are incredible metaphors for writing one.

Father’s Day

She related her story, how her

father was buried by a second wife,

under a tasteless headstone,

where if she visited, she would

be assaulted by the reproach

of her father’s wishes denied.

I shared with her how I had seen

so many cases of cruelty to others

upon the occasion of a death.

(But my own pains were not shared,

and my own unkindness to others

at another time suppressed as well)

.

I remember her running out, her

emotions overwhelming her. I started

to go after her, but didn't, thinking

she wanted to be alone to regain

her composure.

.

I shared with her later, a story of my

father... one of very few memories

of him which was wholesome but

which failed to erase the grief of all

the verbal assaults he made upon

my self esteem, so that by the time

I was fifteen, I had divorced him

emotionally, and shut down most

affection I would have liked to have

shared with him in a better world.

.

Now, I fear I also shut out my friend

by failing to reach out, causing a rift,

before our friendship could begin.

.

.

To learn about the techniques for creating the above drawing,
visit ruthzacharyart.blogspot.com

Writing and Art Work © by Ruth Zachary, all rights reserved.

THE SENSUAL POET

Synesthetic Impressions

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This writing exercise idea was offered by Dr. Jeffrey Lee in a class at the University of Northern Colorado.

.

Synesthesia is a condition in which one affected by it will experience a transfer of information received from one sense to an impression in another sense. Trying to interpret a visual impulse as a sound or vice- versa, would be an example. Using words to describe what is typically sensed as smell, as a color, or a taste expressed as a sensation of touch, can enrich the vocabulary of a writer, and expand his or her means of expression.

.

Since my own mother experienced these kinds of sensations, and since this was the first time I ever knew there was a name for the condition, when I chose to write a series of poems about my mother, I tried to interpret her experience of the world through the prism of mixed senses, in a group poems about her. This is one of these:

.

Summer Sybarite 1918

Once she found it strange that no one

else saw by touch or heard the secrets

sung by woodland trees, or that others

never smelled the same colors as she,

or felt melodies moving playfully upon

their skin, as she felt on hers.

.

When she asked if her

grandfather felt itches from different

pitches played on his violin, his look

was so completely shocked, she

decided these sensations should

not be mentioned. Private. Secret,

and as she grew, she wondered if

the extrasensory and purely pleasurable

perceptions she gained, were perhaps,

dangerous, and… evil?

.

It would remain her secret, a pact

sealed by the sweetness of sun kissed

berries, silenced behind sealed lips,

but told maybe only one sometime day

to her one and only one time love.

.

Yes! she dreamed of love, and

sometimes fame, and music always,

accompanied her thoughts, filling her

heart with a crescendo of joy or a dirge

of sorrow, if that was what was on the wind.

.

On summer nights, through the upper

window she watched the sensual dance

of the Aurora borealis. She reached

with outstretched palms toward

the rainbow curtains, silently matching

the swell of those colors to tones of

keystrokes, set to music using the rhythms

she heard in her head, as she watched

the harmonies of ribbons unfold

across the sky,

but remembering always

to praise God for these blessings…

for being alive, punctuated by being

an instrument of such pure pleasure.

.

Yet at times she feared that things

which brought such rapture were not

of God, but were instead meant

to test her in this, her private wilderness,

where senses never kept their place.

.

.

Writing Exercise Challenge:

.

Try to convey the impression of an auditory environment , and sounds as accurately as possible but use words normally used to describe “colors, temperatures, textures, scents, flavors and even synesthetic sensations.” Lee said “one poet wrote a piece that transfigured sounds into the way one would dance to them” choreographing the sound and dancing to them.

.

There are several other parts to this exercise beyond just using mixed senses and impressions as a beginning. if you are interested, you might try to contact Dr. Jeffrey Lee via a Google search for

Jeffrey Lee, Invisible Sister- Many Mountains Moving. (one of his poetry books.)

.

Writing on this blog is the © of Ruth Zachary.

A WRITING EXERCISE

One Hundred Books on a Deserted Island

.

You asked which one hundred books

one would take if exiled to a deserted island?

Why would one willingly imagine such a fate,

and which books would one salvage?

.

You didn’t say what trauma would cause

this crisis; why an island is the only hostel.

Would this island offer survival,

let alone, time to read?

Your question presumes

a craft large enough to safely transport

one hundred books- one that could haul a

cache of volumes, and one

seaworthy enough to carry them,

like Prospero’s ship transporting him

with his books to that storm-tossed isle,

when he was banished from Milan by

Antonio his brother.

.

I could list one hundred books, beside

Shakespeare, alluded to here,

but the rest would mean little to others,

except those added as an afterthought;

Edible Wild Plants, or Survival with Style.

.

Even I, who

love books enough to fill a house,

would none-the-less prefer a person

with interests in common, in preference

to singular discourse with books only.

Does your scenario allow a mongrel, even,

to be a watch keeper against danger?

.

Prospero, you remember,

was at least allowed the companionship

of his daughter Miranda, sailors and spirits.

.

You have not said if we would be allowed

other items; tools, roof, clothing, or pen?

.

Given more than books, then,

half of my chosen books would be blank,

for filling with words stored in my mind,

and for paraphrasing careful letters, stories,

pages, for for tearing out, to spiral into bottles

which I would set afloat to sail the lonely sea,

carrying all my hopes on a journey

to some welcoming circle of friends

who would come to carry me back home.

.

© by Ruth Zachary

WRITING THE WINTER INTO SPRING

Hieroglyphs: Cabin Fever. Study for Collage

After the Crash

The square screen looms.

Patiently I wait for Dr. Norton
as he scans the flash card
that may have been injured
when my G-4 froze.

It contains my recent poems.

I fear it may be dead,
and watch the way a
parent watches the breathing
of a sick child In the crib..

I focus on the flash card reader
as its blue light blinks steadily

like a heartbeat.

The winter months are a good time for creative time. The study above was inspired by the need to be inside and out of the dreary weather that lasts far too long. The poem was also written a year ago in February. Actually, the weather here in Colorado has given us a few reprieves and chances to walk on dry sidewalks, and I have started my early gardening, pruning back the raspberries as must be done each year for a good summer crop.

Suggested Exercise: Try to express what the season means to you; what feelings and memories come when you think of a particular month. Or write about how you occupy yourself in the time when there is not much else to do. Try to express a feeling using the character of the season, the landscape, without saying it is your feeling.

Images and Writing are the Copyright of Ruth Zachary

WRITING ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHS

A Motherless Daughter. Vintage Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary


As she grew, her mother's photograph
Peered down over the top of the piano,
somber light eyes grave and stern
watched while she learned the keys
making magic chords transcribed from
sounds the spirits played upon her skin,
scales fingered in wordless harmonies there.

Her mother's picture hung upon the wall,
sainted now having died of scarlet fever
days after giving birth. She too, had scarce
escaped, found hanging off the bed
in her long nightdress, up-side-down,
like a cat in a sack, hem held fast
under her mother's body, she had been
scooped up by a watchful grandmother.

Sometimes she felt her grandma’s arms
holding, rocking, until sleep came and dreams,
where she could sink into a warm watery world,
where breath did not matter, and the universe
pulsed in her head, keeping steady rhythms
and harmonies, until surrendering, she could
escape those relentless haunting fears.

Sometimes at night, sleep refused
to carry her away, and she would float, adrift,
the raft of bed pushed hard against her back;
body pressed tight between deep
bedding, and weighted darkness.
Overhead, a cold dark cloud seemed to scream,
but she had no breath; no voice, no light.

This entry is the same as my last post for another blog, where I am coordinating vintage montages about my family history, and including poetry about the people in the photographs. Responding to photographs is a great stimulus for writing. Often the ideas that come are related to where I am at this period of life, and not really about the people in the pictures. Click on the highlighted selection to go to that site.

Images and Writing are the exclusive Copyright of Ruth Zachary.

POETIC INNOVATION

The Secret Garden. Photo Montage by Ruth Zachary

Expand Your Range: Presentation

You may have found your unique and natural way of expressing yourself through poetry. You may have established rhythms and forms that you use regularly. Your subjects or content may also define your authentic voice and style. But it never hurts to depart from the usual, to stimulate both yourself and your readers. Challenge yourself to do things a little differently ever so often. How often is up to you.

Often one’s most creative work occurs during revision.

Here are some ideas.

Look for innovative ways to present your writing; different from your own usual.

If you write in one solid block of wording, or in columns, try re-formatting your original presentation by breaking the body of writing into stanzas. This might separate the beginning, middle and end, for instance.

Respect the white space between lines. Visually, the space allows the reader to breathe and see your structure, making it easier to read.

Try long lined stanzas, and then try short phrases instead.

This is a good time to look to see if some words are unnecessary, or if a word could be replaced with a shorter one, one that sounds more musical, or if whole stanzas or thoughts need to be rearranged.

Experiment with using enlarged spaces between words, instead of punctuation. (except on blogs, because the blogger format will not allow it) When reading aloud, observe conversational breaks so the line breaks are natural.

Tempt your reader to read the next line by ending with a word that begs him or her to go to the next line to complete the thought.

Consider omitting capitols.

In some poems you could let the type stagger over the page. (But not on a blog)

Read poetry by well known innovative contemporary poets, and imitate the innovations, (not the wording or content, unless your credit that author)

If challenging yourself with a traditional form, try to make the language flow naturally.

Be innovative in other ways, as well. Change the traditional order of words.

Reccommended Reading:

Poets: EE Cummings, Adrienne Rich, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rita Dove, Patrick Lawler, Sharon Olds, Gary Snyder, Louise Gluck, Galway Kinnell, Anne-Marie Cusak.

Poetry and Traditional Forms:
The Poet’s Companion, Addonizio and Laux. Norton. 1997
The Poet’s Handbook, Judson Jerome, Writer’s Digest Books 1980
Patterns of Poetry (An Encyclopedia of Forms) Miller Williams. LSUPress.

Writing and images are the property of Ruth Zachary.

IDEAS FOR WRITING

Sewing Notions, by Ruth Zachary


Ethel
Ethel Bertie Bowers
Birth Oct 25, 1881 NY Came West to MI in 1884
mar.1908- George Yale - died Jul 15, 1925
Married May 15, 1943 Fred Scott B.D
Death Sept 21, 1966(84) Death 1969 age 88.

Dau. Jennie Marie Yale Maxon Lloyd Maxon
Born 1909
Married ?
Died April 22, 1934

Genealogy is insufficient oooooooooooooooooooooooo How could happiness be so short-lived?
for recording a life, lives.oooooooooooooooooooooooooooThe answer lies in stringing together
Photos also, so much unknown.oooooooooooooooooooevents left out;ooooooooooounrecorded.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Ethel's screams heard for miles
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowhen she found George dead by suicide.
No one wants to remember.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Knowing details of tragedy reminds us oooooooooooooooooooooo We guess that hope persisted
of how little power we have ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo in Jennie's marriage, until
to prevent the events ooooooooooooooo00000000000 taken overnight 000000struck by a car.
000000000that can break us.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000Life's cruel ironies.0000000000000000 Ethel married Fred00000 finally in 1943.
0000000000000000000000000000000000Lived with him for twenty three years- -000
00000She was plumply handsome, 00000000000000000000000000 a testament to strength
00000stylishly clothed and coiffed.00000000000000000000000000000000 and endurance.
Knowing her skills with needlework,000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
piece-work quilted into tapestry, 00000000000000000000000000 Pictures of Ethel after that00
we guess she created this image00000000000000000 0000000000 show her old,00000000000
of haughty pride and grace0000000000000000000000000000000 lines crevassing her face,000
00overcast by sadness 0000000000000000000000000000 stately form bending
as if some premonition 000000000000000000000000000000ever lower with passing years.000
prevented anticipation of events000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000yet to come.000000000000000000 Memory reveals00000000
In one photo she is shown 0000000000000000000000the thread unwinding off the spool,00000
00000With young Fred, both0000000000000000000000000000000 in unending sequence
00000stern, pious, stiff;00000000000000000000000000000000000into tatted lace doilies,
00000later jilted for George in 1908000000000000000000or crocheted edged handkerchiefs,
000000000000000000000000000000000000Letters listing meaningless details;
Daughter, Jennie00000000000grown.0000000000000her sorrow unmentioned; hope00000000
The three of them standing together.000000000000000000000000000000resolutely clung to00
Smiling at last, and satisfied.00000000000000000000000000for something better in Heaven.00

There is a connection between this montage and the poem. Sometimes an old photo or a painting can suggest thoughts that turn into a poem or a story. Or real life memories can be so powerful they need to be expressed not once, but more; even enough to be a series.

Ideas for Writing: This is a suggestion for writers. Take time to look at an image and then sit down to write.

My Plans for This Blog

I am expanding my original blog (ruthzacharyart.blogspot.com) into a second site because even though the creative process often results in parallels between the two forms of expression, visual art and writing, there seemed to be so much to say about both, that the connections between them seemed to be getting lost.

In the process of moving, I will eventually include all the material relevant to writing to this site. I will also include some of my art images, but will say less about the art and more about writing.


Permission required to reproduce Writing and Images, which are the copyright of Ruth Zachary.