Archive for the ‘poetry’ Category
garden escapes: where did they come from?
When I find a plant in a ditch or roadside where it has no business to be, I wonder how it got there. Of course, the mechanism is usually plain. Some plants have arrived by seed, others by horizontal roots. But how did they get into the garden if that is where they came from?
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This weekend, we found three plants which made me wonder how they arrived in the community where they now grew: bouncing-Bett (Saponaria officinalis), white sage (Artemesia ludovinciana) and harebell (Campanula rotundifolia).
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Where did they come from?
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bouncing-Bett (Saponaria officinalis)
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bouncing-Bett, common soapwort
Saponaria officinalis
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pink blur along the road
fills the ditches
perhaps she loved colour
or needed mild soap
to wash delicates
gloves sullied in the garden
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white sage (Artemesia ludovinciana)
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white sage
Artemisia ludovinciana
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hugs the edge of the road
a slash of silver
in a matrix of green
perhaps he sought
smoke and smoulder
sacred odour of the smudge
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harebell (Campanula rotundifolia)
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harebell
Campanula rotundifolia
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in the margins of the road
harebell catches
found among the grasses
perhaps they wished to play
dress-up with lady’s thimbles
reminded them of home
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Be safe, wear your mask.
All my best,
Jane
garden escapes: having fun
I have been working at my garden escapes project for almost a month now. Many of the poems are simple free verse, usually evenly divided in stanzas of four to seven lines, often consisting of regular numbers of syllables. I have also tried some other forms, the pantoum and the ghazal. And most fun of all, for a few poems, I have tried shape poems, using the lines of the poem to create shapes reflective of the subject matter.
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Here is a poem that goes a step further. The shape shows the shape of lupins growing in the ditch; the colours are the colours of the flowers.
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And, a poem about chokecherries, in the shape of the hanging blossoms or berries.
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I will continue to work with these, perhaps aiming to make the poem read sensibly no matter which way you approach it.
I’d appreciate any comments, positive or negative!
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This work was made possible by a Creations Grant from artsnb!
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All my best,
doing my best to stay in my shape,
Jane
Rebecca
Rebecca
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in black
Gothic
advances
down the middle
of the street
oblivious to traffic
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dark mists
and Avalon
the perfect rupture of sky
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from her fingers
black threads
spin skirt
and widow’s weeds
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black painted nails
blackened sockets of eye
her lips black also
from a feast of berries
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All my best.
Jane
Strawberry Kool-Aid Hair with Ribbons
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Strawberry Kool-Aid Hair
with Ribbons
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strawberry Kool-Aid hair
with ribbons
she pushes the button
to cross Dundonald
serious with her boyfriend
her backpack heavy
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she is like
the student on roller blades
skilled with traffic
not slowing near the top of Regent
reckless to the river
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or the man
a block from here
a man with a briefcase
leaning across the fence
making a bouquet
of pussy-willows
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All my best.
Stay safe.
Jane
heroine
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heroine
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her hair
is a stroke of pink
on the brown audience
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more compelling
than the script
or the decorated stage
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not surprising to see
her name on the program
Rose
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in black but for the hair
even her lips
implore the audience
to pardon the difference
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she, the heroic one
not Romeo
or Juliet
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not the dead
but the left-behind
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All my best.
Staying safe,
Jane
next book in the Meniscus Series: the illustrations
For the last two days, I have been in a drawing mood. Not many authors illustrate their books (not including those who work on graphic novels), but I love this part of the process.
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I have had lots of discussions with readers about the right and wrong of illustrating. Some think it takes away from the reader’s wonderful ability to imagine characters and scenes. Others think the illustrations take a reader deeper into the author’s intentions. As an author, I think drawings help get my ideas across. Since my books are told as narrative poetry, my words tend to be vary spare and I think of the drawings as extensions of the narrative.
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I include two types of drawings in my books: portraits of the characters and sketches of the action.
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The portraits are useful to me as a writer. They help fix the character’s face so the image does not migrate from book to book. I am really proud of the portraits and looking at them inspires my writing.
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I am also proud of some of my drawings of scenes from my books. When the drawing is close to the idea I want to portray, sometimes it suggests new details in the text. Some drawings are not so good but I rarely re-draw. Instead, I think of these as representative of the weirdness of planet Meniscus. It reminds me of a line from my favorite TV show Lost. Daniel Faraday, on his first visit to the island says,
The light… it’s strange out here, isn’t it? It’s kind of like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t scatter quite right.”
On Meniscus, the pencil doesn’t behave quite right.
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In every book, there are 23 +/- 4 drawings. Some are portraits or repeats of earlier scenes. Today, I did two drawings, both unique to Meniscus: The Knife.
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All my best,
staying home
and staying in my two-family bubble,
Jane
reading in isolation
For a writer, retired from the daily commute, living in isolation from others has not been very hard. I have kept in touch with my family by phone, with my writing groups by Messenger, and with other friends through Facebook. When I am not writing, I watch TV or read aloud to my husband and we occasionally go for short drives. I’ve also taken an on-line writing course on Monday and Thursday evenings. Sometimes I sew, sometimes I blog. Rarely I take on my cleaning duties. There is always lots to do.
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Reading has been a true solace in these times of isolation. I have a Kobo for bedtime reading and a Kindle for the living room. And there is always a stack of books by the reading chair. I love British detective series like those of Ann Granger, Anne Cleeves and Elly Griffiths. I also love Science Fiction, most recently Vicki Holt’s Hunted on Predator Planet.
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What’s a comfortable chair without a book?
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So what is it about reading that is so involving? Part of this is setting, being transported to the misty sea-bound Shetland Islands, or the tentacled and mucky landscape of a distant planet. Part is about characters, getting to know people who face heart-pounding danger, or who solve mysteries by fitting clue to clue. Part is about story, a mix of circumstance and fate with twists and turns and an ending you never see coming.
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I have been known to lose myself in a good book. Once I settled in my car at a local park to read and forgot to return to work!
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Other people are reading lots too. I have seen a bit of a spike in book sales on Amazon. It is one of the pleasures of being a writer, knowing that I can bring a bit of escapism and solace to my readers.
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If you want to lose yourself in a book series, try my Meniscus Series. It’s a bit different. The stories are written in narrative poetry in a style that is compact and accessible. There are maps, a glossary and an alien dictionary in each book. All my books are illustrated.
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The Meniscus Series is about humans trying to overcome a dystopian reality on an alien planet. The story unfolds over several books and the theme is building relationships, building community.
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All my best!
Stay in your bubble! Read on!
Jane
illustrating poetry
I am in the process of creating several books of poetry from the many poems I have written over the years. I am now working on the third book, poems about life on my grandfather’s farm. The title will be ‘blueberries and mink’ since these were the main products of the farm.
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There are about forty poems in this collection. I have decided how I will order the poems and done much of the formatting. Since I illustrate the books I write, the next task is to pair the poems with drawings I have done.
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For some poems, as I wrote, I had an image in my head that my hands could draw. A good example is the poem ‘patience.’ One of the lines describes ‘staring down a cow.’ The drawing was fun to do.
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In some cases, a drawing I did for another purpose will find a home in my ‘blueberries and mink’ manuscript. An example is the drawing of old pop bottles I did for a blog post a few years ago. These bottles look much like the ones that used to sit on a window ledge in a shed at my grandfather’s farm.
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Once I have inserted the formatted drawings into the book, I have to make sure they are distributed evenly through the book. Sometimes a poem and its drawing can be relocated. Sometimes I have to do another drawing to fill a gap.
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Next, from the drawings, I have to pick one for the cover of the book. I want the covers for these books to be similar in style with the book title and author name superimposed.
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A couple of the possible covers I am working on are shown below.
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all my best,
staying home,
Jane
ice
As I go over the many poems I have written over the years, I find a lot of poems about ice. Ice is very poem-worthy. It glitters and drips. It is cold and changes form. Icicles make great popsicles (if they are dripping from a clean surface). Ice can be a metaphor for emotion, life experience, change, danger, and so on.
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Today we had a high of 7 degrees C and all the snow and ice are melting. Not really sad to see them go this year.
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river ice
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builds in shallows
at the rim of river, incremental
embellishment to transparent sheets
of glass, ice envelopes winter
remnants, reeds and willows
thickness increased as frost
penetrates, sharp edges
cauterized by cold
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freezing rain
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trees, bare branches, wait
wood snaps in the stove
budgies peck at cuttle bone
pellets of rain, tossed
at the skylight
a second transparency
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bare twigs turn in wind
distribute their coating
in these last moments
before temperature turns
the snowpack on the picnic table
shrinks at the edges
shoves over, makes room
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branches gloss so gradually
candles dipped in a vat of wax
over and over, acquiring thickness
the sky, through the skylight
dimpled tile, rumpled mosaic
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rain stipples bark as narrative
appends to memory, pane here,
light there, layers of glass
cedar twigs turn downward
as fingers, ice builds
layers of skin
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All my best
(staying home!)
Jane
organizing writing files – what to do with scores of poems
Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about the poetry I have written over the years. I have two traditionally published books of poetry and will publish, independently, a small volume later this month. But scattered in the memory of my computer are hundreds of other poems, written over the course of forty years. Quality varies, but they are all mine, an expression of what it is like to be ‘me.’ Someday, when I am dust on the wind, someone is going to scan my computer and push delete. My son would not do this, but if I leave them in this state, they will become part of the clutter of his life.
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So, if I have had success at publishing my own work, and have the skills, why shouldn’t I ‘save’ the poems it took four decades to write.
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My approach has been to find the poems and assign them to one of five files. Each of the files will be the contents of a book of poetry, independently published and produced in a few copies. I have no intention of marketing these books. I may give them to family or friends, perhaps submit them to a few contests and just enjoy them myself.
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The five files will be:
1. ‘niche’ – poems about the spaces occupied by plants and animals
2. ‘myth and mystery’ – poems about strange occurrences in life
3. ‘lakes’ – poems about lakes and rivers in New Brunswick
4. ‘my grandfather’s farm’ – poems about my memories of the farm
5. ‘journal poems’ – poems about specific times in my life
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This is a slow process. First, there are multiple copies of some poems. Second, I have not been consistent with the naming of files. One outcome of this project will be a tidier computer.
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When I have the files in folders, then I will work to organize the poems, revise them, format the manuscript and produce a book. A huge task, but as with all things, I will see the project through in stages, working on one part at a time.
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UPDATE: I now have the files organized! It has taken about a month of work, off and on. I am now working on the poems for ‘niche.’ There are 66 poems, taking about 110 pages. Next post, I will write about organizing the poems into a readable manuscript.
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All my best,
and staying home,
Jane
