thinking about the scrapbooks of anne sexton...

...& how to make a visible/tangible/coded record of a life.

sparse & intricate // thinking about what gets saved // what's deemed memorable enough // what we hold on to

indirect viewing device for a solar eclipse

I thought of a poem by Emily Dickinson as a kind of "indirect viewing device" like those used to safely view a solar eclipse. I made a diagram in my notebook of such a device. 

watercolour, ink pen on graph paper. 

"unrelated poetry side stuff"

I don't really write poems outside whatever current project I'm working on. I have a research based approach to making poetry, which means that when I'm working on a manuscript I'm working on it all the time & not burning energies (& words) on unrelated poetry side stuff. I don't think I'll ever be the kind of poet who publishes a "collected poems" at any point... there just aren't enough to "collect".

When I'm working on something I cut away all the fat & focus my energies on that something. I don't have the stamina to be writing prolific amounts of poems on wide ranges of concepts.

All that being said, I was in oregon last week... my first visit since burying my grandmother. & though the hybrid memoir I'm working on now (see: missoula.) doesn't involve her, I found myself jotting out a little missive on staying in her house now that she's gone:

the moon

"after all, it has been proved, using highly sensitive equipment, that even a cup of tea is subject to lunar tides."

-mary ruefle 

watching old movies & packing for oregon.

notes on autoportrait by edouard leve

"

the small combined to make the big.
what binds us to this earth?
(gravity recurring)

inventory before disposal.

"

hello spring

won't you stop on by?

'atomic flower' - pastel on graph paper.