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Another affair with Water

Another full spread image. These clippings almost give you the full effect. For this, I’ve used the same Stained Glass* effect. It is a style I’ve grown comfortable with.

blog - 8 (1)Simply find an image that has a lot of lines and begin cutting shapes or patterns away, using the lines as a guide.

Use rubber cement to place new colors or images behind the cut away. Voila: stained glass.

Major prompt: Incorporate a quote, an epigraph if you will — common in poetry.

For this piece, I’ve filled in a boat with the word “Water” floating in blue. And look, that W is not a W at all. It is an upside-down M! Wow, mom.  Continue reading “Another affair with Water” →

Celestial Navigation

Number 7 is about image and sun and finding your own way and Bob Marley.BlogMain - 7Number 7 is the place where you should let your hair down, loosen your belt, drink a root beer, and free yourself from whatever preconceived notions you hold toward poetry, art, and writing.BlogSup2 - 7

Here is a photo of my work space. This is a piano bench. My piano bench does not contain music because I play by ear, or by finger, as shall be explained after the jump. Continue reading “Celestial Navigation” →

Controversy 27

This is the second in the on-going internal series of Controversys.

I am a writer who responds well to limits and rules (Too much submission? Perhaps). Sometimes, there are just too many words in the world. This poem says:

You may only use the words which appear in this particular column on this particular page. Continue reading “Controversy 27” →

The Eye is the First Circle

This cut-up poem is very hard to look at. The colors are just atrocious: almost all the hues are exactly the same value and saturation. This is such a huge no-no in design ( I should know: I attended a lot of art colleges and took Color Theory 101 at each one).

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But, honestly, the intensity is what I love about this and what drew me to the font in the first place. Continue reading “The Eye is the First Circle” →

Encountering Farnham’s light-displacement

Here is the thing about experimental writing: It insists that you follow every impulse, no matter how vague. So, when you are flipping through your magazine and happen upon a line of boats each bearing the name CONTROVERSY, that would be an obvious sign.

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I admit, this is not my favorite poem thus far. But it has its moments. The title is killer and it introduces a theme. It is the first piece that makes me think something bigger is going on story-wise in the collection:

encounter |enˈkoun(t)ər|
verb [with obj.]
unexpectedly experience or be faced with (something difficult or hostile) Continue reading “Encountering Farnham’s light-displacement” →

Build Your Own Boat

What do you call a poem without words? A picture poem.

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I considered putting words on the page but decided the absence said enough. To be honest, I am confident that I could read this poem aloud if I was forced to. Certainly, I could speak to why I believe in it.

Here are some explanations for this piece. Continue reading “Build Your Own Boat” →

“The French word for scissors, is the plural of the word for chisel”

For the second poem, I decided to dip into the Artforum magazine in order to assure that this project does not go too boat-crazy. I could see how I might get too attached to the concept. This poem begins a secondary theme of dealing with the artifice of collage … or maybe I’ll end up with a little embedded series “for” artists I adore. It’s early days. Keep an open mind.

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If you are one of the three people following along <this is me winking at my mother> with this project as an instructional guide, the following is for you. Continue reading ““The French word for scissors, is the plural of the word for chisel”” →

The Light Displacement Controversy

The first poem is the most important poem. It sets the tone of your collection. This poem tells readers two things:

  1. This is about boats.
  2. This is not about boats.

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The Controversys

That is not a typo. That is the name of a line of boats. Down in the basement of a local bookstore this weekend, my sons grabbed a 1984 copy of Wooden Boat and a 2007 copy of Artforum for collage. Thus began a new project. And with the new project, a direction (finally) for this blog.

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I’ll document the progress here as I begin with these two magazines creating a page by page, no editing allowed, collection of “picture poems” (my youngest’s term for collage), erasure, and poetry experiments.

Continue reading “The Controversys” →

blog is here

death erasure
erasure #2 from Wobegon series

I used to have a website. It was hosted through a server. Now it is not. Now I have this.
Talk about rebirth as I slowly rebuild.

Cedar (Re)names Animals


A charming video from 2010 which Cedar will never live down.

Four Conversations with Cedar, age 3

(Originally posted July 17th, 2013)
For the lead-up to Cedar’s fantabulous eighth birthday I posted these conversations on the book of faces, because what is 8 but a mirror of 3? Here they are again:

no. one: The snake and the rock

me: Do you see that snake down there on the ground?
cedar: Yes. It is beautiful. We should not throw something at it.

me: That is true. We shouldn’t.
cedar: Because someone might find out.

me: Well. Maybe it just is not such a good idea. We could hurt it.
cedar: Yes. And somebody might get mad.

me: Really, Cedar, we just should not want to hurt the snake.
cedar: Yes. And someone might find out we did it because a rock would crush the snake.

Continue reading “Four Conversations with Cedar, age 3” →

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