Ice dance
In southern New Brunswick, we are recovering from a snow and ice storm. My husband has been in the tractor, removing snow and ice, for two days. Between runs with lunch and diesel, I am reading Ann Cleeves, one of my favourite UK detective authors. The phone rings and I am wrenched from a very different kind of storm in the Shetlands to a neighbour who wants the services of an ice-gobbling tractor.
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As the sun goes down, I re-live the beauty of the day. Chickadees, a downy woodpecker and a red squirrel spent the afternoon competing for the sunflower seeds in our feeder. Every tree is laden with ice and the wind stirs up powdery snow-devils across open places. The evening begins with memories of glassy trees and the faint tinkling of their twigs and branches.
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Every twig wears
A diamond bracelet.
A wrist turned,
Just so,
To join in the dance.
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All my best,
Jane
pantoum on morning
A couple of months ago, a friend from my Fictional Friends writing group suggested the image below as a writing prompt. The image reminded me of my once-daily morning commute where I would often see the settling of the morning mists in the low valley of the Saint John River.
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morning mist
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wake in morning, wool-headed
reluctant to start the day
fog settles as droplets of dew
webs woven over pasture
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reluctant to start the day
fleece teased over hollows of hill
webs woven over pasture
hesitation of a solitary ewe
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fleece teased over hollows of hill
disperse as sun stretches arms
hesitation of a solitary ewe
drowsy as dreams feather into deed
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disperse as sun stretches arms
push back pillows and duvet
drowsy as dreams feather into deed
woolen blanket of valley mist
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push back pillows and duvet
wake in morning wool-headed
woolen blanket of valley mist
fog settles as droplets of dew
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I have been thinking about prompts for writing: images, collage, words, phrases, sentences, and so on. Just google ‘writing prompts’ for a barrage of ideas. Writing prompts can be used to combat ‘writer’s block’, to suggest new pathways for writing or to find new metaphors.
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For a poet, I think another type of prompt is ‘form’. Form suggests new patterns of expressing an idea. For the poem ‘morning mist‘, I used a photo as a visual writing prompt and the pantoum form (with modifications) to explore new ways to pattern ideas about morning.
pantoum – a poetic form written in any number of quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme and repeating lines: the first and third lines of any stanza are the same as the second and fourth lines of the preceding stanza; the first and third lines of the opening stanza are used as the second or fourth lines of the last stanza. The last line of the poem may be the same as its first line.
I like the interweaving of ideas and emerging images as the pantoum proceeds. The repetition slows the poem and establishes echoes within.
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All my best,
Jane Tims
rural to urban
In one of my recent posts, here, I wrote about a course I took using collage-making as a writing prompt. To help us visualize the method, the teacher (Lynn Davies) gave us examples of collages she had built and asked us to do some response writing. Here is a facsimile of Lynn’s collage and the poem I wrote in response.
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Relocating the Rhino
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We move,
rural to urban.
Exchange night song
for traffic noise.
Swap canopied trees
for storied buildings,
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night stars and Jupiter
for wall switches
and tic-tac-toe
of energy leak
from offices
in skyscrapers.
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Beneath our feet,
rocks become fluid,
magma, electric blue.
Footing uncertain
on rocks
that wobble.
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We armor ourselves,
chose tenement addresses.
Turn off lights
to save our silver,
wish for stars
in the night sky.
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See only
tired workers,
keeping
the lights on
way past
quitting time.
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Since I am a community planner and environmentalist, the interpretation of the collage comes as no surprise. The surprises (for me) are the rhino as metaphor for humans moving into the urban setting and the comparison of the twinkle of office buildings to the twinkle of rural stars. Implied is the irony of rural workers, seeking a better life, working even longer hours when they migrate to an urban life.
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All my best,
Jane Tims
black ice
black ice – a transparent coating of ice on a road, usually asphalt
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Winter comes with its driving challenges. Heavy snow, slippery roads, poor visibility … a good driver is aware of them all. Black ice is particularly challenging … it’s hard to see, often unnoticeable until you are trying to navigate across it. It may look like bare pavement, smooth sailing all the way! Black ice can be a metaphor for any dangerous encounter in our lives.
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charisma
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your eyes glitter
crystals of salt
I think you are
untrustworthy
your charm a veneer
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black ice only shows
in a stray beam
of moonlight
or when headlights are switched
to high
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Drive with care in every incident of life!!!
Jane
out of place
One of the advantages of belonging to a regional writing group — regular opportunities to refresh the writing mind and put new tools in the writer’s kit.
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This past month at WordsFall, an annual event of the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation, I took a course from well-known poet Lynn Davies (author of how the gods pour tea, 2013, Goose Lane Editions, The Bridge That Carries the Road, 1999, Brick Books, and others). Lynn’s course Paper Moon, Paper Shoe: Writing and Collage introduced me to an new idea, using paper collage to inspire and renew.
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In a couple of very enjoyable hours, Lynn showed us how to build a collage from magazine images and other paper scraps. She showed us examples of collages she had made and set us to work on our own collage. Her instructions were to select images that appealed to us at the moment and not overthink the choice of images. After the images were glued to a card, we took some time to write about the collage and the ideas it suggested.
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Here is the collage I produced and the resulting poem.
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out of place
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An orange tree
in temperate soil,
among caraway
and dill.
One red tile
in a zigzag
of black and white.
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Shoes take me
for a walk
in barley grass
and caraway.
Melon rinds
on size five feet.
Too slippery, too wide.
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Garlic and dill
by lantern-light.
Ten after ten
on the hall clock.
Pickles and port
and a splash
of blackberry wine.
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Floor-plan,
when the lights go out,
makes no sense at all.
Dormer rooms
too tight
and me too tall.
Caraway among the dill.
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Salt on wounds.
Seeds in pickle jars.
Willow trees scratch
at window glass.
Garlic to banish
grinning skulls,
creep beneath tiles.
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Next time you struggle for inspiration, consider generating some new ideas with collage.
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All my best,
Jane Tims
covered bridges
If you follow this blog, you know how much I love covered bridges. We are so lucky in New Brunswick to have 58 remaining covered bridges, but we lose some almost every year, to vandalism, neglect, fire or flood.
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I have included covered bridges in my art for years. My first covered bridge painting was of an anonymous bridge. My dad asked me to paint a large mural (8′ x 4′) in our rec room at home and this was the result …
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‘a covered bridge in winter’ Jane Spavold (Tims)
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When I first arrived in New Brunswick, many of our local trips involved visits to covered bridges. In 1992, as a project to celebrate Canada’s 125th anniversary, my son, husband and I visited many bridges in southern New Brunswick. Last year, my husband and I found this notation on one of those bridges — our initials!
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During those days, I was busy with work and painting covered bridges was not a priority, but in 2013, I painted one rather uninspired watercolour of the Marven Covered Bridge near Sussex.
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‘Marven Covered Bridge, Kings County’ Jane Tims
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In 2015, as part of a project under artsnb (the New Brunswick’s Arts Board) and a Creations Grant, my husband and I visited 35 covered bridges, mostly in the Saint John River watershed. The results of the project are the poems and art contained in my book ‘in the shelter of the covered bridge‘ (Chapel Street editions, 2017). The cover of the book shows one of the paintings I did of the Malone Covered Bridge.
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‘apple tree, Malone Bridge’ Jane Tims
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One of the drawings for the book captured a covered bridge now lost due to carelessness, the French Village Bridge over the Hammond River.
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In the next months, based on other black and white drawings in the book, I did two more covered bridge paintings for the on-going art auction at Isaac’s Way Restaurant in Fredericton.
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‘thistles at the Malone Bridge’ Jane Tims
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‘chokecherries at the Ellis Bridge’ Jane Tims
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A neighbour of mine saw the Ellis Bridge painting and commissioned me to paint our local Patrick Owens Covered Bridge.
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‘chokecherries at the Patrick Owens Bridge’ Jane Tims
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As time goes on, I will paint other covered bridges. They are so beautiful, each a work of art and engineering. The artist’s challenge is to bring out the individuality of each bridge and illustrate its place in our history and landscape.
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All my best,
Jane Tims
first ephemeral snow
snowflakes
absorbed by wet pavement
as though
they never existed at all
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all my best,
Jane
