Watermark

pantoum

    

if i could, this is what i would tell you

how the shutters cut light into slices

pale blades on the ceiling and walls

how it cuts off your voice in my dream

 

how the shutters cut light into slices

how i wake in a cushion of fog

how it cuts off your voice in my dream

how it insulates me from your absence

 

how i wake in a cushion of fog

empty of you and all others

how it insulates me from your absence

empty of you and all others

 

empty of you and all others

i hold myself in my arms

darkness takes shelter in corners

pale blades on the ceiling and walls

 

    

 

My Journal

I am writing again, and doing several projects; too many, probably. Online, I'm doing  The Documented Life Project and Tangie Baxter's Art Journal Caravan and Symbology Project. I'm behind in all of these. In real life I'm taking two poetry classes through the  through the MOLLI Program at the University of Montana. I missed the first two sessions of both, made the next two and will make the final two. 

All this has gotten me back to my journal. Several of these projects have participants who are interested in the actual stuff of journals; hence, this post. All the art journaling and collage-making I do is done digitally, so my actual real-life journal has always been pretty plain. White lined or unlined pages and black ink with an occassional foray into colored paper and ink, often short-lived. Mostly just writing, but occasional doodling. And I rarely print my art pages. 

Now I'm trying something different, and enjoying it very much. 

I've used Circa Notebooks from Levenger for decades, both professionally and personally. I love the versatility of them. I can use paper of different sizes and move pages around easily, within or between notebooks. I can have several notebooks with different covers for different projects.

It has finally occurred to me that I can print out interesting pages to use for my writing. I have accumulated a vast library of digital images, and there is no rule that I must write on white paper. This is what my current journal looks like (click the images for credits & larger sizes at flickr):  

 

I'm using Tangie's Tangible Plans @ ScrapBookGraphics to make my pages. Here's my collection so far:

I'm loving using these. The images encourage me to loosen up and play a bit. You can't be too serious when there's a picture of a squirrel on your otherwise blank page. Making the pages was itself a fun creative activity. I didn't get serious about that, either; there is no fancy photoshopping here, just plunk the images down and print. 

I panicked for a moment when somewhat busy pages popped up as I prepared to take notes in my poetry classes, but I decided to just go with it, and it worked really well. Better for me, in fact, than a thin list of things I want to go back to. Why didn't I realize this when I was in school? 

 As you see, I'm also printing out some of my collage/art journal pages. I think I've discovered all the various ways it is possible to screw this up: put the paper in the printer the wrong way so that the backside prints upside down; don't get the paper into the punch securely so it's wonky in the book; don't be careful about measuring before cutting the paper in half. I seem to have a genius for this. 

It's worth it, though. If, like me, you don't have the space or energy for in-real-life mixed-media art work, but you wish your journal looked a bit more interesting, I recommend this approach. It's very fun. 

because (a middle-of-the-night poem)

 

because of how wind

bends trees in the courtyard

 

because chickadees and nuthatches

break seeds on the branches

 

because our brains

change what we see

 

because we are pattern-

making creatures

 

because sleep is elusive

and dreams opaque

 

because the cat purrs

on my shoulder

 

because memory is a trickster,

a coyote, a raven

 

because the moon is full

then a crescent, then gone

 

because absence cannot be seen,

it’s slippery, like water, like light

 

because light makes patterns

of branches on the ceiling

 

because i wake in the night

calling your name

     

Death is Unkind

   

Death is unkind

to the living.

It hollows us out,

leaves us stumbling,

pretending there is ground

under our feet. How

is it possible to be

a vacancy, yet so full

of grief?

 

                for Sheryl Noethe

    

Writing, Poems, Poetry

        

        

I am trying to reclaim my interior life, the life that generates poems. For too long, exterior life has intruded, welcome as some of those intrusions have been. 

I'm slowly returning to old habits: writing my dreams when I wake; morning pages; reading poems. And I'm taking two classes through the MOLLI Program at the University of Montana: If it Ain’t a Pleasure, It Ain’t a Poem with Mark Gibbons and The Writing Process - Details and the Senses with Sheryl Noethe. 

I also had some unexpected encouragement with the invitation to put some of my poems up at VerseWrights, where I am in very good company. 

I may even have a poem or two to post in the next few days. 

 

[Click the image to see credits & larger sizes at flickr.]