our lives

I've always had a secret fascination with photojournalism.

I don't think I'm very good at it, but I like to try.

I started photographing protests with my 35mm film camera in high school when I attended the large anti-war protests in Portland. This past weekend I ventured out to the March for Our Lives in downtown LA. More photos on my instagram. 

pieces

"the body on the side of the road was a metaphor."

mexico city portrait.

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I'm writing a novel & that's the opening line.
poems seem far away by prose is harder.
prose is solid lines.
poems are fogs gathering in valleys.

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some blogging about mexico city.

Projects

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Continuing on with my poem a day project.

Editing my poem/film.

Co-producing my first feature.

Projecting films at the Downtown Independent.

Writing a screenplay.

Working. Working. Working. 

Reading tarot again.

Preparing for my Saturn returns.

shock, horror, anger

no words for the atrocity we have committed against our country. 

all I have left is poems. read the zine on my website.

spent my saturday in the bleached desert wasteland outside mecca, ca shooting my latest project: a hybrid of poetry & film called bones. more information about the project on my website.

the persistent sun left me quite sunburned, so I'm slathering myself in black tea & coco butter. I love the sparse strangeness of the california desert, the way it rolls out into the blue sky like sugar cookie dough.

now we enter post-production.

making it

Excited to be working in pre-production again on a short film project I've written & am slated to direct & star in!

For a while I've been thinking about making videos for poems in the way we have music videos for songs. After a lot of pacing & deliberation I wrote a script based on a poem from my graduate thesis & am in the thick of pre-production! Storyboards done! I'm meeting with my talented friend, & the DP of 4B, Freddy Tang to talk logistics. We're gearing up to shoot mid-October! It's going to be quite the little adventure, a road trip out to location, & a hot summer day, but I think we can make something really rad.

studying again

A little over a month ago I found out I'd won one of the inaugural scholarships for 12 weeks of study at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, & I've been embroiled in scene study there ever since. Super excited to spend my summer working on my craft & hanging out with one of the best, most supportive communities of artists I've had the pleasure to know. I put up my first scene last night & had a great time, learned a lot, & have ideas on what to work on for my future scenes. It's exciting to be in a space where everyone is learning, & making mistakes, & figuring things out, & thriving. A nice way to transition to life after graduate school!

There are several other things a-brewin' for me this summer, so stay tuned! :)

post graduate life:

reading books, writing poems, working, watching netflix, journaling, going on long walks, meeting up with friends, laughing, making new friends, texting,  making plans.

here's a poem I wrote:

cocooned as I was
in delicate orange sheets
I barely remembered
the heat of the stars

A video posted by N (@natalie_raymond) on May 5, 2016 at 8:12pm PDT

graduating with my MFA on friday. 

night

Have been enjoying my time at AWP the past couple of days. Starting to feel, once again, that poetry is crucial. That sensation has been absent from me for some time.

In honour of national poetry month & AWP's final day I wrote a poem as I was exiting the subway last night...


taking the subway after sunset

I walk out into the night
my toes—
curled under my weight
like tubes of hot glass,
orange & oblong,
spinning at the end
of rebar bones

making shorts

a little more than a week away from principle photography on my short film/directorial debut. things are coming together, falling into place...

there's a certain amount of delusional grandeur that's required to be a beginner at something. I remember thinking, all those months ago when I first started writing the script, that I'd just make a short film, that it couldn't be "that hard".

it's laughable now that I thought it would be something I could churn out in a weekend.

but after months of getting things together, planning & rewriting, we're finally on the home stretch of pre-production. we shoot the final weekend of January & then the new adventure of post production begins!

current events

-reading books
-boxing
-dealing tarot
-learning lenormand
-running
-hiking
-cat quality time
-expanding
-journaling
-procrastinating

 

I'm reading this friday, 11 december, at poetic research bureau in LA.

A group of very cool poets/writers/humans from CalArts & UCSD will be reading brief interludes, free & open to the public. More info on the facebook event page. 

-N

headshots

getting going.

getting the ball rolling.

 

new headshots & a photo gallery are added to my website.

loves: reverend horton heat & X

One of my favourite bands on earth is X. Each time they end up in NYC I always put on my concert shoes & head out. Last night was such a night.

Punk music is catharsis. Completely exhilarating, & enabling you to get out of yourself for a while. A much needed break in a city like this.

rev. horton heat

billy zoom, exene, & john doe

exene & john doe do an acoustic piece

This was actually the first time I've seen The Reverend Horton Heat... they were incredible! I absolutely loved the Johnny Cash cover they did. It inspired me to change my ringtone back to Folsom Prison Blues. 

I'm a little deaf now... & my arms are sore from trying to hold my own along the outside of the mosh pit.... I tell you one thing- you do not want to mess with me in a mosh pit. 

xoxox

n

tragic & depressing stories

It's thanksgiving week y'all & while others are planning huge feasts or buying outrageously expensive plane tickets back home I am organizing my movie collection and way over-thinking season one of The Walking Dead (I just started watching). If that's not tragic then I don't know what is!

Perhaps I'll have a diet dr pepper chug-a-thon while watching all six versions of Pride & Prejudice currently in my DVD collection... that sounds like a good day.

(but seriously, the plan is vegan soul food in the village & lots o laughs... there probably will be a lot of diet dr pepper involved though).

N

elections

via my tumblr

after the wind

Yesterday I decided to take a (brisk) walk through Prospect Park on my way to the Community Bookstore in Park Slope. I needed Susan Howe's book, My Emily Dickinson, in order to maintain my sanity. The park has been largely cleaned up since the storm (semi-unfortunately, I love disaster tours) but there were still down trees and a general leaf-mess everywhere. I managed to snag some good video footage, which I'm working on turning into a video piece of some kind... my ambitions in video art are far ahead of my editing abilities (as anyone who's seen my vimeo knows), but I needed a break from regular writing (between MFA thesis, my own little endeavors, and explorations in freelancing, I'm permeated with words of late).

Selections from after the storm:

midnight ritual

merry samhain!!

have a happy halloween & a blessed samhain y'all!

don't forget to make a wish at midnight for the new year...

I'll be setting out my tarot cards & making my resolutions... lighting candles for mary & persephone & leaving a special something for hecate on the fire escape.

blessed be,

n