"On the last day of the year, who better than Mary Oliver to inspire us?" - a friend of mine wrote, and posted a part from her poem "The Ponds"
Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts...
Since then, the reading and sharing of poetry continued - one of my favs from this new year poetry stream is M.S. Merwin's "To the New Year",
so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible
Beyond those established poems, there also is the memory of the tiny poems / notes of moments, written last year in January. It's a good thing, to take time to note a small moment each day, and note it down - to be more attentive and aware of all those moments that make a day.
It was easy to return to this practice, especially as the first snow started to fall on Monday, giving the world a soft and special touch. And also nice to return to skywatch friday that way: with a light/snow photo.
So somehow, unplanned, this year started on a poetic sky tune.
Themes + Snapshots
"Rain all day" - that's what the weather forecast promised for Thursday, the day I went to the Frankfurt Bookfair. "Hopefully they are wrong," I thought. As yes, the bookfair is mostly an in-door event, but they have this gorgeous central plaza. Which comes with an open stage, a reading-tent, and and a read-and-snack-area which basically is a breather between halls. With more than 7000 national and international exhibitors, the fair is the largest bookfair of the world. At some point, you long for that breather in between all the impressions and authors and highlights.
When I read through the infos for the 2016 bookfair last week, I learned that both the settings of the different areas of the fair and the fair concept itself has shifted: it now also includes an art section. And has more stages for themes. Their focus topics in 2016 are: Asia, Kids, Education, Art & Design, Self-Publishing, Weltempfang"/Global Reading,., here's more: Frankfurt Book Fair Themes
As a starter, here some photos and links, to give a feeling for the atmosphere. For more impressions, try the twitterstream: #fbm16 and #frankfurtbookfair
The author tent in the central plaza. The author who is signing in the photo is Connie Palmen, I read one of her books some years ago.
In one of the international halls.
The indie lit scene: Indiecom and Pioneer Talks
Books, books, and more books, in all kind of languages, about all kind of topics. The bookfair, in some ways, it is the world in miniature.
**
The Arts + documenta book project
When I read through the infos for the 2016 bookfair last week, I learned that both the settings of the different areas of the fair and the fair concept itself has shifted: it now also includes an art section, a fair inside the fair, called: THE ARTS+
It's a vibrant and surprising hall, presenting current and upcoming art themes and events. The big eye-catcher was the XXL-book of artist David Hockney:
The upcoming documenta was part of the THEARTS+ program, they introduced a special art project:
"The Parthenon of Books" is an art project that will be shown in 2017 in Kassel at the documenta, and which now officially gets started: The argentinian artist Marta Minujín is collecting books from forbidden and persecuted authors for it. For more about the documenta and the project, visit: documenta 14 / Athen / Kassel
And just some steps from there, the Gutenberg-Museum leads back to the beginnings of printed books:
From print to the web: the international artists Olafur Eliasson and Ai Weiwei currently invite people to join "Moon", an interactive project that transcends borders set by nationality and language.
This year, the guest of honour at the bookfair is Flandern & the Netherlands. With the slogan “Dit is wat we delen” (“This is what we share”), they will present not just novels, nonfiction and poetry, but also new forms that have emerged from the book arts, creative industry and other artistic fields.
The two countries developed an original idea for their presentation in the "Forum":
A poetic ocean moment
As always, the guest
country gets a hall to represent, and they turned it into an open, airy space
with ocean bay atmosphere. So nice. They put up some loungers, and I was lucky
and there was a free one – and the woman next to it on a chair welcomed me by
the guest countries, and invited me to listen to poetry. Which she would read.
Live. For me. Such a nice and different “exhibition”.
The poem she read was by Anneke Brassinga, here's the start:
BY THE SEA
The wind weighs the words
and finds them too light
the wind weeps, sweeps the words
aside, out of sight...
The bookfair, it is an extraordinary event anyway. For me, it was special in a different way this year: the last time I've been there was 2 years ago, in 2014. It was the last day of my "normal" life. Of course, as it goes with last normal days, you aren't aware of that while they happen. It was a sunny Thursday. One day later, on Friday evening, I discovered a lump in my breast. And hoped it wouldn't be what I thought it was, yet had a bad feeling from start. Which then got confirmed a bit later, and lead to a year of cancer treatments, and a long time of recovery.
So going to Frankfurt again, 2 years later, wasn't just about going to the book fair again. It also included this symbolic element of returning to a place that now carries a different kind of meaning for me.
September. And the August-theme of noticing small moments, putting them into words and sharing them ... continues. So nice. Here's the link to the facebook group.
September brings an own theme, too, though: ModPo is back, the online Mooc of Modern Poetry. It was one of my fav courses so far, and I look forward to it. Today it is starting again, here's the welcome mail: "Dear Dorothee & all those participating in ModPo 2016:
Welcome to "ModPo." We founded this community of people interested in modern and contemporary U.S. poetry five years ago and are delighted that each year more folks want to join."
And a third beautiful thing I am grateful for: we will have go to Mallorca at the end of September, for some late-summer island time. It's an idea we had last week in the Black Forest, yet we weren't sure if it would work out - but now it did.
So in celebration of all this, a poem I wrote in Mallorca once, and another photo of the horizon:
*
Leading to
A circle. A destination. This day.
The everlasting question: how far is it still?
My expectations. The reality of life.
The stones that count down the miles, in red paint.
Another photo of the horizon.
The fact that we are always (t)here.
It's Poetry Month! Hadn't planned to join, but on the final day of March, Found Poetry sent a newsletter with an invite: "For this year’s National Poetry Month (April 2016), The Found Poetry Review invites you to join us for IMPROMPTU, a thirty-day series of experimental writing prompts."
And at the same day, a friend sent a poem - and together, this opened the door somehow.
So to start, some poetry links I enjoyed - and below my first april poem: "Angelfish & Borrowing".
Ne’ilah by Marge Piercy
We cast what we must
change about ourselves
onto the waters flowing
to the sea...
To the sea by Aracelis Girmay
You who cannot hear or cannot know
the terrible intricacies of our species, our minds,
the extent to which we have done
what we have done, & yet
*
Impromptu #1: Patrick Williams, who created a stunning "little prompt generator that draws from the HathiTrust Digital Library and the Library of Congress Children’s Subject Headings to deliver an nearly endless supply of generative activities."
Try it here: prompt generator
The poetic task the generator came up with for me was this one:
"Find twenty-two words from these two pages to begin the lines of a (twenty-two-line) poem entitled "Angelfish & Borrowing and lending."
*
and here's the poem that came from it:
Angelfish
& Borrowing and Lending
It was about that time a week ago when it
happened:
A long distance call in the evening
From a stranger who asked about the
Experience of being human,
The things we learned so far,
not from borrowed catalogues of knowledge
but from real day-by-day life
I went and tackled the questions, tried
To analyze, to think quickly.
Yes, of course, I said. The daily life, it
is
A flame in our hands, the hourly glow of everything,
the
troubles of the human condition, all our
new dreams and worries,
methods and hopes, highways and lost places.
Just consider the care it takes to get
Proper strength, the ends through which all
is connecting,
The gamble of living wortwhile.
In that manner I kept talking until the
party
On the other end of the line hung up.
Then I sat down to write three long letters
to myself,
"If this would have been a year like the ones before, I would be in Mallorca right now. Walking along the ocean. Enjoying the island atmosphere... But it isn't.." - that's how the blog post from last week started (here's the whole post: If. Then., Bravery + Joy + Fear, and May.). Now, looking through the books I read this month, I had to smile: 3 of them are set at the ocean. And the fourth is.. a travel memoir.
"Journey of Self: Six Months in the Japanese Countryside" by Nate Golon
.
In April, I read the Granta "Japan" collection - and just some days after finishing it, I came across this travel memoir about Japan. Written by Nate Golon, who left Hollywood disheartened after some years of first success, and tried a very different life for six month. The book is a bit slow in some places, but the parts with the larger reflections on life are wonderful.
Here's the book description: "Nate Golon sells everything he owns and takes a job teaching English in a small country town, Arida, in Wakayama Prefecture in southern Japan. ... An introspective and transformative fish out of water tale, about the importance of taking the road less traveled, and being open to new experiences."
"Sail With Me: Two People, Two Boats, One Adventure" by Rebecca Burg
This book took me to places I never been, with a way to travel I that I don't know much about: taking one's own boat to sail from A to B. Or rather: from Florida to Bahama, and to other exotic places. What is missing a bit for me are the journey / travel / life reflections, it's a bit too much on the fun side for me. But the list of places visited is remarkable, they include: Florida's nearest exotic ports: Bimini, Grand Bahama, the Abacos, Elutheria, Marquesas, and Florida Keys island chain.
There's also a website photos from the journeys, and with more about the book: Rebeccaburg.com
And here's the description: "A fun, sometimes funny, adventure for boaters and non-boaters alike. Get swept into a journey through exotic, tropical islands. Hide from hurricanes, an outlaw ghost, and craze."
Ocean Books - Back in Time
In addition to those books, I read two German books that both are set at the ocean. The first book leads to France, to the Atlantic coast there - a place with settlements that date back thousands of years ago. Reading it made me think of the book I read in Mallorca last year: "Talayot". Here's the reading note from that book:
"Mallorca has a rich history that reaches back to Neolithic times - to the time of the Talayot culture, with tribes living in early settlements. Nothing is left of them but the stone buildings, and some artifacts. But none of their stories survived. There's no book, no carved wall, no wall painting. Nothing. In her book "Talayot", the German author Maike Hempel tries to bring back that time, weaving the real places into a story that is told in flashbacks, and merges the now and the past."
Turns out, very similar settlements can be found in France. So reading the book both took me to the ocean, and back in time, to last year's real-life-ocean moments: island reads. Dünenmond / Dune moonThe other book is an easy read, a love story with some twists, leading to the Baltic Sea - the "Ostsee" how it is called in German: "Eastsea", which belonged to former East Germany and the neighbouring states. In not-real-logic, the coast of West Germany is called "Nordsee" (Northsea). I havn't been to the Baltic Sea so far, but the Norhtern Sea is actually the very first place where I stood at the ocean. That moment, it later turned into "august at 11", published in eclectica. So here's the ocean, from memory:
august at 11
in summer, we always headed to the mountains—
to Austria, Switzerland—following alpine paths
earning the amethyst needle, the chamois badge
for multiple stays in the same place
then, one august, we drove to the northern sea
the wind was freezing while we sauntered the sand dunes
yet people ran through the waves in bikinis and shorts
you get used to it, everyone said, it's not that cold
in the evening, we walked to the harbour
to see the metal sailboats, to watch the fishermen
leave on night cruises, catching shrimp and crabs
to sell, to boil alive for tomorrow's supper
the water was almost transparent
there were starfish, everywhere
an army of them, lingering silently
at the edge of the ocean
i kneeled and watched them, urged them
to make a move, to acknowledge my presence
—come, my mother said, they will still be here tomorrow
but of course, the next day
they
were gone, to never return
leaving but a premonition
of all the things waiting
to be missed
** Global Reading Challenge 2015 + Currently Reading:
For 2015, I try to read books / authors from different countries, the idea is to visit all continents. Here's more about that plan: 7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books.
Reading this week: Granta's "Japan" collection, and books + stories it leads to.
"Everyone knows this country and no one knows it. Here are twenty new Japans by its writers and artists, and by residents and visitors and neighbours. A special issue of Granta, published simultaneously in Japanese and English." - That's the introduction note of the issue, and like the other Granta collections I read, it offers a fascinating range of stories + essays + photos.
For me, the issue also brought some good cross-connection: it includes an essay by Ruth Ozeki, whose book “A tale for the time being” I read last year. It's one of my fav reads of that year, and itself conntected to previous reads, here are the reading notes: global reading: A Tale for the Time Being (or: Ozeki, Proust, Past, Present)
In the Granta issue, Ozeki has an essay that also is about connections. It's called: "Linked" and ends with a haiku dialogue between the past and the now:
Which fits perfeclty to the haiku-theme i blogged about last week, with the Folded Word haiku challenge: rain haiku effect
Following the theme, I visited lines from Matsuo Basho, the classic poet of haiku, and his lines:
“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
― Matsuo Bashō
More of his lines, here at goodreads: Matsuo_Basho
*
Basho + April Poetry issue + Ginsberg longread
...and when I looked for his work in Poetry magazine, I arrived at Basho's biography ("The 17th-century Japanese haiku master Basho was born Matsuo Kinsaku near Kyoto...")... and then saw in the sidebar that they April issue of Poetry is up for free download, in celebration of National Poetry Month:
Talking about classics: one story of the Japan issue mentions The Tale of Genji, which I dipped into some summers ago. "The Tale of Genji" was written by Murasaki Shikibu win the eleventh century, and is one of the world's first novel. I just looked, the collective reading notes are still online: The Summer of Genji - a joined approach to tackle this classic read.
Haruki Murakami is inclued, too. Two years ago, I read his Tokyo story "After Dark" (reading note), and before that, his book on running and writing.
The Japan issue also features an essay by Tao Lin, who once contributed to BluePrintReview, so I went to re-read that one, too: Tao Lin: Something Happened
One of the most fascinating stories for me is "Arrival Gates" by Rebecca Solnit. It leads to a place I hadn't know of: The Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine: "There are multiple routes up the mountain, and the routes take you through thousands of rjther torii gates.."
The photo is from wiki, here's a whole page of photos. And a link: the story isn't inlcuded online, but there is a Granta Posdcast with the editor Yuka Igarahsi and the author Rebecca Solnit.
So I will listen to that now while going for a visual trip along photos from Japan - such a variety of atmospheres, just like in the Granta collection. And then move from Japan to the BreakBeats...
** Global Reading Challenge 2015 + Currently Reading:
The books I read this week... were chance reads, brought by the phone book box again. After the luck I had there with books the last time (finding "The Lake" by Banana Yoshimoto, and a new edition of timeless essays, here's more), I went there again to bring some own books. And again, I was lucky and found 2 interesting books - a poetry collection that covers 3000 years, and an autobiographic paperback:
Poetry Collection .. #readwomen
The poetry collection is just perfect for the #readwomen2014 theme: the title of it is also its concept "Gedichte von Frauen aus drei Jahrtausenden" - "Poems by Women written during three thousand years". It covers all regions and epoches, and leads from Sappho (Greece) to Emily Dickinson (US), and from Ono Komachi (Japan) to Adelia Prado (Brasil) and Amrita Pritam (India), and on and on...
This will be a summer companion book for me, to read at a slow pace of 2 or 3 pages / poems a day.
A short poem that touched is from Rose Ausländer, on the beauty and challenge that words can be: the labyrinth and the door they present: "In Wonder"
I lose myself
in the jungle of words
Find myself again in the wonder of the word.
... here's a webpage that features a set of Auländer's poems, with the German and English version next to each other: Rose Ausländer Links & Poems
(and nice to find another poet with the almost same name, one i know... hello, Rose Auslander)
back to the phone box books: here's the open page with the German vesion of Ausländer's poem, and beneath it, a poem by Zuzanne Ginzanka...
Ginzanka is a poet i havn't know, from Poland. Born in 1917, she had to face the world war, and died at 27. It's a small solace that at least her words remain. here's more about her, and a translated poem, in the literature section of the Polish magazine biweekly.pl: Something of Other - Portrait of Zuzanna Ginczanka (interesting article that also is about the difficulty of translation).
..more to come from this book in a future book post. i think this might be not only a slow read, but an interconnected read, one that makes me google more about the single poets. i also think it's great that this anthology is so international.
**
the other book is a German version, but I guess the title is easy to read anyway:
"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie
When I saw the book, I remembered that I heard of it somewhere, and picked it - and later, when I added it to my Goodreads book list, I noticed a book review by fellow blogger Jessie Carty, who wrote: "'I'd highly recommend this one and I'd love to teach it someday because there is so much to discuss regarding race, poverty, thinking as a creative person, and simply on how to be good to others.... This is another great example of a young adult novel that will be a fanststic read for an adult (review link)."
I can only second that, and today, after having finished the book, I looked for a youtube clip with Sherman Alexie - in the book, he's a schoolboy, living in a Res(ervat), and trying to find his way - which for him means, to cross the border to the next town, and go to school there. The book includes illustrations, which also point at a young style. Such a surprise to play the video and see the grown-up author he has become:
And to close the circle... here's a poem by the other Rose Auslander, on the magic and difficulty of words:
Your spine unrolls and flattens my heart.
We have no words for this...
The full poem is online here:THIS - it is published in Referential Magazine, which is edited by Jessie Carthy (the one who wrote about Alexie). The world sometimes is a box of unexpected connections.
** Currently Reading + More Reads:
For 2014, i didn't join a specific reading challenge, but i try to read books / authors from different countries and continents, and also follow the “readwomen2014” initiative. Here’s more about it: 2014 - year of reading women
es/sencelles sky. water. horizon. longing. a town called sencelles. hawk in the wind. solitary casas. the choice of way, for once, a simple one: one road to take * notes.. the poem is from May 2012. i thought of it while driving through Sencelles again, the day before yesterday. and re-posting this now, i thought: i could take more time for re-posts. there are so many interesting posts in the archive. + here are more moments from Mallorca
Yesterday's doodle was about a tree and birdnest, and today comes with a fox underneath a street light. Both spoke to me, especially as it is a time of nature waking, and birds starting to show and sing in the morning. Here are the lines I arrived at:
* wildlife crossing— this moment when the hidden steps into the light
* first new spring green showing— when will the birds return?
**
While typing, i looked for the long dash, which isn't part of the German keyboard. But I knew Emily Dickinson used it often in her poems, so i went looking, and arrived at this verse that connects back to poetry as form, and the power of silent words. (here's more, can't seem to find the exact page again, though)
They shut me up in Prose— As when a little Girl They put me in the Closet— Because they liked me "still"— .
This blog post is inspired by the "It's Monday! What are you reading?" series, more about it, below, and more reading notes, here: life as a journey with books
April is National Poetry Month - and it's also A to Z Blogging month. So altogether, it comes with a bit of a different reading rhythm. I am still reading "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorov (more about it in last week's post: from islands to futureworld), yet the focus of reading this month is more on blogs & poetry:
"This Art - Poems about Poetry" - is an intriguing collection that reaches towards the inner nature and the function of poems, in a most poetic way:
"In more than one hundred poems, sixty poets from around the world explore the nature and function of poetry, whether directly or obliquely, finding mystery, paradox, and fullness in an art made of common everyday speech. Editor Michael Wiegers writes in his introduction, "Often the loudest arguments on behalf of poetry are made in prose. Meanwhile, the more convincing arguments are sung in poems."
To get a taste of it, try this page with Selected Poems from THIS ART - poems about poetry by Copper Canyon Press
one of my favourites of this collection is included on this page, too: "A Tao of Poetry" by Sam Hamill.
Against-all-odds bookstory from Paris
There is a bookshop story connected to the Poetry book: I actually first saw this book in Paris, when I visited the famous "Shakespeare and Company" bookshop (the one run by Sylvia Beach - author James Joyce was one of the (then yet unknown and broke) authors who frequented the bookshop. Hemingway, too. Beach was the one who first published Ulysses.)
So that's the place I walked in. I walked in, amazed by all the books they have there, piles and piles, old and new. The one I picked was the Poetry book - i still remember how i picked it up, opened it at random, and the first thing i read was the TAO poem. then i browsed on, and returned to them, dug up pencil and paper to copy the title... and then a man walked up to me, and hesitantly asked why i picked the book, and what i was writing. the man, as it turned out, was: the editor of Copper Canyon Press himself. Michael Wiegers. such a good coincidence.
here's a photo of the bookshop - if you happen to visit Paris, makes sure to visit the place (right next to Notre Dame, just walk across the bridge).
A to Z Blogging Challenge
From Poetry to Blogging: April is the month of the A-Z blogging challenge. Almost 2000 bloggers joined this alphabetical venture this year. Me included. Here's more about the A-Z Blogging Challenge. To browse some new entries, try Twitter AtoZ or this new "taboard" service: AtoZ tagboard
Or you could try this G-faceand for G, try this facebook-thread with more than 50 different bloggers and their G-themes, from Guinea Pigs to Grammar, from Goodreads to Gone: facebook / G is for ....
Cubism meets Books
And last but not least, this rather cubistic book moment from last week: visiting the new library.
Here's more about it: cubism meets books
***** Global Reading Challenge This blog post is inspired by the "It's Monday! What are you reading?" series that is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, participating blogs are listed in this Linky Book List Previous reading blog entries are collected here: bookshelf: currently reading... there also is a visual bookshelf, just click it to get there:
today is day #7 in the A-Z Blogging Challenge - which makes it: G-Day. looking back at the first week, i noticed how the alphabetic challenge adds a different tune to the single days, something almost melodic: G like gis-moll, G like garden, growth, genesis, going, germany, ground....
or: G like Geometry & Generation.
****
Generation Effect
It's all part of the plan
You and us
Energy and water
Someone has to be there
Facing high expectations
Mixed up priorities
Parties of one
Time is running short
The future starts
_____________________Now
Poem generated from headlines and adlines of Newsweek Magazine
**
G-Notes "Geometry" ... the photo is from Essen city in Germany, inspired by the photo friday theme "Geometry" - and also by the windows theme that was sparked by YB poetry magazine, and that i followed for a while after creating an 8 windows from 8 countries gallery for it
"Generation Effect" ... was first published in the magazine "xstream", which isn't online anymore. but at least there's a cover page up in the waybackmachin: xStream...
during April, i am joining the A-Z Blogging Challenge - each day, i will revisit the archive of published works from a new alphabetical angle, and repost an image and a text. more about the plan: A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, April 2013 Today is: B. which took me back to "Berlin past present" - and to a Butterfly Show a poet wrote for me.
****
Butterfly Show for Dorothee Lang, written by Molly Gaudry These transparent paper butterflies are so beautiful I want to walk the few blocks west to the art supply store in order to purchase several handmade sheets of paper, all blue -- shiny, royal blue, baby-blanket blue, tissue-paper blue, turquoise and periwinkle blue -- and cut, with tiny gold scissors, some butterflies of my own. I will buy a length of thin gold ribbon, the kind with the wire edge, and make a day-long braid of it; I will drop dots of hot glue to the underbellies of my butterflies and press them gently against each strand of the braid and let it dry by drifting in the wind, then wind it around the bars of our gone baby's crib. I will do all of this because it is March, because soon it will be April, and then Mother's Day and the rest of the summer that reminds me of when I was pregnant. One of the worst things I ever saw was at the Conservatory during the butterfly show; children everywhere, the way they reached to touch and roughly stroke or crush the butterflies after luring them with their fingers and noses, which had been brushed with sugar water. So many crumpled bodies all over that botanical wonderland; so many smeared streaks beneath those children's sneakers. But it wasn't this that bothered me as much as the image of one small, blue butterfly, high in the air, her desperate wings beating against the crack in the domed glass.
*** Butterfly Symbolism
This is interesting: while visiting other A-to-Z blogs, i came across 2 other B-posts with butterflies included, which lead to some notes on butterflies and their symbolism in the comments. I don't know much about their symbolism in other cultures, though, and now did a web search, here are some takes from different cultures:
Generally: "cultural myth honor the butterfly as a symbol of transformation because of its impressive process of metamorphosis."
in ancient Greece: "The ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psȳchē), which primarily means "soul" or "mind"
and a similar image in Japan: "In Japan, a butterfly was seen as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead."
in China: "the Mandarin Chinese word for butterfly is "hu-tieh". "Tieh" means "70 years", therefore butterflies have become a symbol for a long life"
***
B-Notes
The image Berlin past present ... was inspired by the Blue Fifth "Black/White" issue, and turned into the title image of the Blue Fifth Fall Quarterly - Black. For more about the photo, the place, and related notes, visit this Berlin blog note.
The Butterfly Show - is special. I thought I lost those lines, they aren't online any more, and it was while looking for A-stories and adding links to my archive list, that i found them again, copied in an archive file. The poem, it started with a blog note: "For $1.00, I will write you a poem and post it here", poet Molly Gaudry wrote in a self-created poetry challenge. She also asked for a couple of keywords. We only knew each other fleetingly. The poem still touches me.
**
A to Z Links
B-Blogging in other blogs, some recommended links: Another Butterfly (with beautiful photos), Belgrade (travelogue with photos), Be Like Water (writer blog), Beaches (travel blog), & Bonair (island travelogue with butterflies)
the next of the March doodles is up, and it's a lighthouse. it instantly made me think of Mallorca island, and the lighthouse at the Northern edge at Formentor. the route to it is stunning, and just some miles before you arrive at the lighthouse, there's a bay with a view towards the island, and with azur water. that's where i took this photo.
now for a short poem, i thought. and arrived at this wave poem:
wave and wave and wave and wave of open horizon & in the night: circular light
*
when i tried to turn it into the visual above, it changed. interesting how a different outer format creates a different text.
*
and later, in unknown tune with the theme, a friend sent these lines from the new Poetry.com:
“Dolphins at Seven Weeks” by Rachel Jamison Webster “Inward lush unpetaling purpose in pink blooms of sleep, and I no longer needed to be separate. I was living there then, at the edge of the sea. ... We walked the folded cliffs over conifer fronds and mud runneling rocks slick with dropped fruit and rotting camellias to pause at the first ridge.”
i read the lines outside, at noon, sitting in the corner of the terrace that provided shelter from the wind. it was like being there for a moment. and made me go and look for an ocean video that i once filmed, but didn't upload. this is on the opposite side of the bay: wave and wave and wave, in yet another format:
(inspired by a "campfire" doodle and the line: "I doodle, you (hai)ku")
a sketch of a campfire at yay words brought back this memory of sitting at a fire,
watching wood sparks (night fireflies) and star formations.
will see if this works out, maybe march will be for haikus that are inspired by doodles and then turn into vispos, into combinations of new words and moments from the photo files - like this fire, from March 2007.
the fire moment also connects back into the past, to a collaboration between me and Daniela Elza, published in Counterexample Poetics. the titel of it: small voices.
i just looked for it, and found it by googling "Dorothee Lang Daniela Elza". below is the intro line, with link. maybe that will be another part of march: to combine the visuals with revisits of previous works.
***
Small Voices
a collaboration between Dorothee Lang and Daniela Elza
"How to listen to small voices? We make noise, create things that make loud noises. All too quickly forget to listen to the very quiet, to silences, which speak to us in numerous ways. This theme encompasses both artists' work: the many ways earth/mind thinks, speaks. The invitation: Listen."
click to visit the small voices:
snow drive. hawk in the wind. a crossing. solitary trees
whatever we touch touches us. there is no other
leaf or limb this world is my body walking
heart wood beating
a shifting, drifting, whispering echo
a silence always on the verge of sound,
a book stripped of unnecessary words
ancient woman bowing in the wind
*
(Leafpress invited poets to send couplets for a co-op new year's poem again.
the theme this year: "tree". 37 poets responded. the whole poem is online at: co-op tree.
above, a variation of it: a found tree inside this tree. more about Leafpress and the series, here)
"70 Days of Poetry Some days ago, the literary course "Modern & Contemporary American Poetry (ModPo)" by Al Filreis started. The official introduction to it says: "This course is a fast-paced introduction to modern and contemporary U.S. poetry, from Dickinson and Whitman to the present. Participants (who need no prior experience with poetry) will learn how to read poems that are supposedly "difficult." - Almost 30.000 people enrolled so far, .. and i look forward to it, and am curious how a poetry class of that size might work..."
that's what i wrote on 16th September, after the first week of the poetry class. so glad i arrived at the course when it started, and can only say: it was a great, inspiring, and moving experience.
the end of (Mod)poetry
this week was the final week, and today, while listening to the final video discussion, i layed out all the syllabus and note and poetry pages that i printed out during those 10 weeks, starting at the very first poem from weeek 1: Emily Dickinson's "I dwell in Possiblity", moving to Walt Whitman "Song of Myself", William Carlos Williams "Smell!", Allen Ginsberg "A Supermarket in California"...,
... to the week that was dedicated to Imagism, and the week of Gertrude Stein,
... to the week of Antimodernist Doubts and Formalism,
... and of course to the Beat week with Ginsberg, Kerouac, Creeley and Waldman
... to the New York School, John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara,
... and finally to the trends in recent poetry again, with the Language Poets, the week of Chance, and with the ending point: Conceptualism.
what a poetic journey.
it leaves me with a bit of a post-journey blues, the classes, the poetry, the readings, and Al Filreis and the whole discussion group, the structured and guided pathway they carved for all to explore, the Kelly Writers House itself, that all has turned into a part of these last 70 days. now that time ends.
goodbye and thank you, Modpo :)
i will miss you.
**
and some extra links, for poetic visits and revisits:
yesterday brought a good mailbox suprise: the new book from poet Rose Hunter arrived here. it's beautiful, published by Texture Press, written in Mexico, and titled: [four paths]
one of the poems was first published in BluePrintReview: [carricitos]
which starts with this line:
"pick a starting point and it can’t be"
yet a thing that can be: in celebration of the new [four paths] (which is available at a lower price), Rose's previous collection "Foal" is free from today to Sunday on Kindle: A Foal Poem by Rose Hunter
& for more about Rose's writing and the four paths, visit her website:
Big Backpack, Little World (a chance encounter)
So many places in this world, and so many books - the eternal question probably is: from the million of possibilities, how to figure out the journeys to take, and the books to read? Just try it, is one option. That's how I came across the travel memoir "Big Backpack, Little World", which happened to be free for the day just when I checked the e-book travel listing. So glad I ordered it:
"Big Backpack, Little World" is a fine read - a travel memoir by Donna Morang, who lived in Montana and Alaska. After retirement, she decides that she is ready to try something new again, and starts backpacking and teaching English abroad. She has a wonderful humour and a perspective of someone who has seen a lot already, and at the same time is open and excited about life, and keeps learning herself. It's a joy to follow her trails to Mexico, Spain and Cambodia, and made me also think of my own days of solo traveling in other countries. As starting point, I'd recommend her blog updates from Mexico, which have the same warm touch as her book: ESL Donna
The Left Hand of Darkness (a modern classic)
A modern classic, and the second book ever that won both the prestigious Hugo Award and the Nebula Award: that's "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's labeled science fiction, but in the introduction Le Guin suggests to read it rather as a thought-experiment: not as a future prediction, but as a story that describes reality, the present world, "a truth - wrapped in fiction". The story itself has the form a of journal or a travel report. It starts with the words: "I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination..."
On first glance, a very different book than "Little World", but both books are about getting in touch with the previous unknown, and sharing knowledge with people that live in a different place, in a different kind of society, and who speak another language (and then with the reader). The traveling in Le Guin's book has a much larger dimension, though - it's to another world, a world named Winter, as messenger. Here's a quote that gives an idea of the concept, which was informed by Le Guin's family, too: both her parents were anthropologists, and the theme of cultural encounters runs through her book:
"Alone, I cannot change your world. But I can be changed by it. Alone, I must listen, as well as speak. Alone, the relationship I finally make, if I make one, is not impersonal: it is individual. Not We and They, not I and It, but I and Thou."
Beyond the book: Wired Interview and a literary course
Le Guin is over 80 now, and still giving fascinating interviews - WIRED spoke with her last year, they have the talk up on their page both as transcript with images and as podcast: Still Battling the Powers That Be
And here's a short interview that is moving - Le Guin about life, age, books in time, and being an author:
For some background information of the book, you can check out the online literary class of Eric Rabkin at Michigan University, several video lectures are dedicated to Le Guin's book (here's the course link: English literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Human Mind, Our Modern World.
"My Life" by Lyn Hejinian, and "My Emily Dickinson" by Susan Howe
I am still following the "ModPo" Modern Poetry Class, and it's like a guided tour through modern poetry with a lot of reading samples. Interesting also how the themes of this week connect: from the traditional travel memoir of Small World, to "My Life" by Lyn Hejinian, who created an experimental biography, written at age 37 in 37 segments of 37 sentences each, and later, at age 45, revised into 45 segments of 45 segments each - by format itself already a reflection on the nature of life and memory. Here are 4 sentences from one of the childhood segments: "A pause, a rose, something on paper. Solitude was the essential companion. The branches of the redwood trees hung in a fog whose moisture they absorbed. Lasting, "what might be," its present a future, like the life of a child."
And - Susan Howe, and her writing that is sparked by Emily Dickinson, especially by her poem #754. Reading it is a reminder again of the power of words that still stand on a page, that remain, that are an open side of a dialogue waiting for a reader, long after the writer has gone.
The starting lines of said poem #754, one of those that still echo from the reading:
"My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun - In Corners - till a Day.."
For more, try this google link. It leads to 1.750.000 pages loaded with words - quotes, notes and responses to a poet unforgotten.
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It's Monday! What are you reading? This blog post is inspired by the blog series "It's Monday! What are you reading?" which is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. participating blogs are listed in this Linky Book List
Previous reading blog entries are collected here: bookshelf + monday reads. there also is a visual bookshelf, just click it to get there:
Some lines about me: I'm into roads, stories, places, crossings, and all the things they lead and connect to. I edit BluePrintReview and the blueprint book + lit blog. Apart from being an editor and blogger, I am also an author myself. My new book Worlds Apart launched some weeks ago:
Worlds Apart: the true story of 2 friends, 2 journeys, and 10 life lessons
In the global world, a traveler from Europe and a teacher from Asia meet in the web, share their journeys, and the joys, longings, and life lessons that wait along the road. Captured in letters and photos that reach from China and India to Germany and the Mediterranean Sea, a dialogue across continents and cultures unfolds: Worl(d)s Apart
