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 ART

Reconstruction, Collage 18x24" by © Ruth Zachary

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Writing About a Piece of Art, Assignment from the Previous Post -

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Techno-Challenged.

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To write about a piece of art

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when viewed only as a tiny band

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on a panoramic screen

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is really hard. It breaks my heart

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when a tiny streak the thickness of a hand

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is all that shows or can be seen

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after all the junk pre-empts the part,

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that my collages might command,

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but must instead be scrunched between.

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So, now I am using the following poem instead. It does relate to the abstract image above, in an abstract way but isn't so much about art. Blogger keeps reformatting everything I put in, so I will try to enter it one more time, but it changes after I publish the post, and I apologize if it still isn't right, but I can't spend any more time. It doesn't recognize a paragraph (return) so that is why all the little periods to create a break. Wouldn't you know that my blog about writing would turn everything I write into a document by a seeming ignoramus?!!! The following poem was
copied in Times New Roman, regular font, and Blogger's HTML pastes it in as an italics document in a different font and size, and pastes one line over to the left of all the others. It doesn't matter if I type it in from scratch, or copy and paste. It still messes up everything.

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The Spiral Path

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Once I saw the dance of life as a journey.

It seemed an apt metaphor, because

I wanted to be on course, undeviating,

walking across a map on a path I had

plotted for myself. Even following a

a river, upstream or down provided a

similar idea, albeit more interesting, and

hinting at the unexpected events life

throws your way; interruptions, or fate?

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Looking at the landmarks of my years,

it has not been even a voyage on the

ocean’s surface that I have undertaken.

It was more similar to a multi-dimensional

passage through space and time, where

the significant persons and events or I,

cycle, return to, and resemble other

experiences from the past, not sensed

in the sequence of occurrence.

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It emerges as a spiritual quest, a shaman’s path.

And in the view through time, the earlier

events now take on a transparency

through an aurora borealis of vibrating

energy, absorbing new colors, and I see

it all through depths of greater meaning,

layers of significance, a galaxy spiraling

outward, a multiverse interacting with my

passage, expanding, and creating …me.

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Writing and Art 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)

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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.

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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.

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Now, I fear I also shut out my friend

by failing to reach out, causing a rift,

before our friendship could begin.

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

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

BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN CREATIVE VISION

When Flowers Grow Free, Pen and Ink and
Computer Drawing Tools, ©by Ruth Zachary.
To see more art and read about the drawing
techniques, go to ruthzacharyart.blogspot.com.

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Daffodils

Daffodils appeared on the hill

I planned to move them

to a cultivated place.

After digging two feet down

those tender shoots drooped

disappointed, snapped off by accident,

where stems curved in earth

from some deep nocturnal residence.

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Roots undiscovered, buried

there twenty years or more

by a dozer digging a drain field

beneath the hill. What will to live

could endure such valiant effort?

How many years, if ever,

before they found the sun again?

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Not long.Their roots in darkness knew

not only when spring arrived

but how to grow toward the sun.

And I, compelled by nature's need

to love, obeyed some internal

compass drawing me to light.

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This past month I have experienced a time like this, when many of my creative efforts failed. I started over each time with a new approach to make my ideas materialize, until I began to learn from the failures. Some experiments and some visions do have limits. They have natural ways to grow which are inherent to their nature.

I wanted to integrate my abstractions with realistic images, but as long as I sought to do this using the old methods, the attempts didn’t work. As soon as I realized I would have to work differently, and to use black and white without color, my efforts began to work. And because I wanted the images to be used for illustrations in poetry chapbooks, black and white was well suited to the planned use.

I am very pleased with the process and with the results. I feel as if I have come out of the darkness into the sun. What I have learned is to be patient, and to realize creativity doesn’t only exist when things seem to go right. It is still there, even when it seems dormant. Creativity lies deep within, and with continued nurturing and effort, beauty manifests in its own time and way.

Images and Writing are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.

FATHER'S DAY

This is one of my favorite memories of my Father. It was not Father's Day, but I always remember this happy recollection on that day.

Homesick at Chi Rho Camp

I came with the other kids from church,

one sunny Sunday afternoon,

to spend one week at Chi Rho Camp.

We were all separated into teams.

I was twelve, and mingling with strangers

was hard for me, but I was still hopeful.

In my little group we talked about

Christian values, only I was so shy

my heart was in my throat, so when

I tried to speak, I forgot what I intended

to say and everybody

laughed!

I was so embarrassed! I felt like

I couldn’t face any of them again.

I cried, and told one counselor,

I was homesick and wanted to go home,

and besides, the weather had turned cold

and I really needed my coat.

She somehow sent word to my parents.

They didn’t have a phone, but impossibly,

my dad appeared with my winter coat.

We went out and sat on a bench,

right out by the water of Crystal Lake,

his arm around my shoulders,

and waves slapping at our feet.

The sky was gray, and the wind was

cold, but the rain held off.

In the clear golden water, waves

rocked flat round stones on the bottom,

as big as the span of my hand.

Daddy asked me what made me

feel homesick, and then asked me

what I hoped coming here would be like?

He gently suggested that if I left, it could

never turn out the way I wanted,

and the chance could be gone forever.

I felt better, and decided to stay.

My dad changed everything that day.

© by Ruth Zachary

WHERE VISIONS GATHER

Visions Gather

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Shapes take order

out of chaos

as darkness yields to dawn .

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Words sound in the virgin snow.

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Footprints lead to where

no body moves.

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A ghostly promise

compels the artist to make images;

the poet to

make poems of them.

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Art work images and writing are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Writing Exercise Challenge:

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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.

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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.)

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Writing on this blog is the © of Ruth Zachary.

DO YOU EVER RANT?

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WRITING A RANT

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A Rant is usually a long poem in which the poet explores a subject in a noisy, fast paced, declamatory or bombastic manner. It was a form developed by the beat poets in the1950s in California. It is a form

presented in free verse, or as a series of prose paragraphs. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is a well-known

example. Rap is similar to this form, but rap usually incorporates rhyme and rhythm accompanied

by a drumbeat or electronic percussive beat.

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This poem began in a class taught by John Rybicki, in Michigan. He had class members write down

words that had great importance for them. These were “words of power.” We all exchanged our words,

and I drew John’s word, brick from the hat. At first I thought I could not relate to the word at all.

My resistance reflected my anger and led to writing this rant, which in the end I discovered I liked.

It turned out to be a word of power for me after all.

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Resistance to something is a good indication that there is some suppressed emotion about the thing

being resisted. If you encounter it in yourself, you may find it will provide fuel for a poem

(or even another writing form) you had never thought about writing. Try this as a writing exercise.

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Begetting Bricks

Dedicated to John Rybicki

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i

The bow-tied gift is painted

in hard brushstrokes, mortar

scraping the hand, drawing blood.

Unwrapped, I see only brick.

Bricks are unyielding, brittle,

I become hard in saying it.

I am like my friend who built up walls

without windows around herself.

I tried for a while to knock them down,

but learned self made walls,

regenerate themselves.

resistance is a pointless effort.

From the brick,

I learned something about resistance.

I accept the gift.

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ii

I try to be flexible, creative

even with bricks.

Firebricks piled grandly

in the basement of my childhood home

for years were the source of imaginary

playhouses and yellow brick walkways.

In my youthful fantasy,

I built a kiln with those bricks,

and in that primal oven,

fired sculptures, bas-relief,

tiles, tablets, containers,

to hold all manner of bounty.

I once wanted to fire clay into pots.

Foundries, ovens and kilns utilize

fire to harden objects

molded to the will of a creator,

but the bricks and daydreams

stayed in the basement,

sold by my father with the house.

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iii

Bricks are artificial shapes

in a natural world with a life force

of their own, which expand

upward, hard and linear,

against an ever more distant sky.

Bricks and concrete are allies with asphalt,

infrastructure crusting the earth.

Brick structures become wedged against the

natural boundaries of organic space.

Bricks are mortared into inflexible walls,

forming a fortress of power over others,

as well as the impenetrable prison

holding some within, and barricading

others without, exiling the poor

often without resource.

Bricks break the windows of the dreamer.

They become bunkers for predators

Bricks become tombs,

gas chambers; crematoriums.

Bricks become the poor man’s bludgeon;

the means for crushing the structures

which crush them; the means of survival

for the fittest, as the poor feed on each other.

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iv

Kilns are brick wombs birthing

clay offspring; bricks, whose families

will become other ovens.

Bricks are loaves in the oven, bread

to feed other bricks.

Societal forges burn, melt,

reshape other material

to the will of the mass mind of Brick society,

structures built in modular sequences as

hard and linear as the original unitary shape.

These structures, brick by brick

expand upward but have limits,

which demand glass ceilings to limit

higher achievement by other material,

Unless allied with concrete and steel.

I overheard an unkind remark, harsh,

bruising. The words fell like bricks

on the ear, hard rectangular shapes,

mortared together in rigid concrete

structures, prototypes for conformity,

blocking territories in the mind.

Bricks are the foundation and walls

of homes and churches, nations.

patterned in conformity

molded by invariable formula.

and in turn, they are the structures

housing religious family values

that would demand conformity

as regular as salt crystals,

cubed and cloned in exactly the unitary shape.

the ultimate Nirvana brick where

the ultimate family values

are of one mind, one cube, one hive,

with computers, mass media

and assimilation for all.

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v.

The ikon god of bricks

would be as indestructible

as the ominous obelisk

from 2001 hurled into space.

That brick, morphed into a monolith

in its trek to other worlds

(where no brick has gone before)

has become the robotic ship

inhabited by Borg. Resistance is futile.

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If you would like to see more of Ruth Zachary's Abstract Art, visit her blog,

mixedmediart@gmail.com

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Writing and Images are the Copyright © of Ruth Zachary.