Not too long ago I did a post showing photographs from my mural walk which featured poetry written all over the city. Today I’ve got a video to share that shows Portuguese poetry written along a bike path. What a beautiful idea! I love the thought that you can find writing everywhere that you go … it’s inspiring for writers of all types! TreeHugger has the video along with a written translation.
I recently went on a tour of the Mission District here in San Francisco. (Learn more about that from Diary of a Smart Chick). One of the things that I noticed was that there was a lot of text incorporated into the murals. Combined with the images of the murals and the stories behind them it all looked like poetry (and of course some of it was intended to be that way. Here’s a glance at the writing in murals:
I wrote an article last week about how to celebrate national poetry month. There are a lot of little things that you can do to bring more poetry to your life in the month of April. What I’ve been thinking about since writing that post, though, is what poetry really means to me. I think that poetry really helps you to focus on all of the different senses that you have … and that got me thinking that maybe we should spend National Poetry Month trying to approach poetry with each of our five main senses.
- Sight. There are so many different ways that we can “see” poetry. The most obvious is to read poetry that has been written down for us in books or online. However, we can also see poetry in the sense of looking at things around us with a poetic eye and imagining poems based on those sights. Yet another option would be to read a poem and then to go out with a camera and to capture images that remind us of that poem.
- Sound. Sound is an easy one when it comes to poetry. We can have someone read poetry to us or we can read it aloud. We can listen to poetry on tape or online. Better yet, we can go to a live poetry reading.
- Smell. How do you smell poetry? By going to a used bookstore and taking in that scent of books in the poetry section. By focusing on the smells described in different poems or writing a poem about our favorite smells.
- Taste. We can taste poetry by writing or reading poetry about different tastes. We can focus on the tastes we are enjoying and think of poetry in our minds as we indulge in these tastes.
- Touch. Poetry is a means of connecting with other people and so is the sense of touch. A great thing to do is to trade massages with someone while simultaneously reading poetry together or listening to it on a CD.
How else can we use our senses to enjoy National Poetry Month?
April is National Poetry Month so I thought I’d share ten great quotations about poetry as a way to celebrate:
- “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.” – Audre Lorde
- “Real poetry, the thick, dense, intense, complicated stuff that lives and endures, requires blood sweat; blood and sweat are essential elements in poetry as well as behind it.” – Edward Abbey
- “Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you — like music to the musician… — or else it is nothing, an empty, formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their nots and explanations.” – Fitzgerald
- “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” – Sandburg
- “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.” – Aristotle
- “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” – Shelley
- “Poetry isn’t a profession, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.” – Mary Oliver
- “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” – Frost
- “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” – Don Marquis
- “Any healthy man can go without food for two days — but not without poetry.” – Baudelaire
What is your favorite quote about poetry?
One of the things that I really love to do to get inspiration as a writer is to attend open mic events, poetry slams and literary readings where people read their writings from the stage. I think it’s great to experience the written word in the spoken format. It changes it, adds a new dimension and makes it something slightly new.
Attending these events always inspires me. Sometimes I hear a word or phrase that sparks something for my own writing. Sometimes I consider exploring a new form of writing after hearing it aloud. And sometimes it’s just the energy of the crowd that makes me want to write.
What’s interesting is how many different types of writing events there are and how different each one is in terms of the energy and ambience of the event. Some of the ones that I most commonly attend include:
- Open mic poetry events. This is where people of any age and writing level sign up on a list and get to read their own work for a certain amount of time. These can vary widely in style depending on the host and may even end up more like a variety show with comedians and musicians being included. I typically find these events to be interesting (albeit slightly overstimulating) because of the diversity of the group that comes to read although this, again, can vary a lot depending on venue.
- Poetry slams. I discovered these back in my college days and then lost touch with them again until just the past few months. These are events where people sign up to compete against each other for cash prizes. They get a certain amount of time to read one poem which is voted on by a set of audience members. Here it’s more about the performance than the words themselves (although the words matter) so you get a totally different vibe that’s almost more like theatre than poetry reading.
- Multiple writers reading together at an event. One of my favorite writing events in San Francisco is Writers with Drinks. At this event, five or six different authors are invited on stage to read from their works for about fifteen minutes each. They get enough time to really explore their genre but you get exposed to the writing of several different people. This is usually less intense than a poetry slam but not as laidback as most open mics I’ve been to. Each author brings his or her own following so there’s a lot of support and you really sense a writer’s community at things like this.
- Single writers reading their work. This is what you typically get when you have an author reading at a book signing in a store. They read a specific work for an extended period of time so you really get to know the work. Then they usually take questions so it’s a great way to learn a lot about a writer’s process. However, I usually don’t love these events unless I’m specifically interested in the author and have read at least some of his or her work.
- Erotica readings and performances. There is a whole other set of literary readings which is geared entirely around sex. Sometimes these are erotica authors reading from their books at book signings. Other times they are open mics of erotic poems. Or sex workers’ performance art shows that include authors reading. Whatever the format, the underlying vibe of these is sexuality so it’s a different feeling than what’s at other writer’s events.
What other types of events do you go to where writers read their works?
Writers need to explore visual creativity. Or maybe that’s not true of all writers but it’s certainly true for me. There are just times when the words get to be too much; times when I can’t think straight because there are just too many words and word choices and ideas expressed in language. When it gets to be that way, I turn to visual art. Sometimes I play around with it myself as a means of new expression. And sometimes I just observe it and enjoy it and try not to think about it in words.
Collage art has always been my favorite form of visual art in terms of how I like to creatively express myself. I like the cutting and pasting of different images to create something new. It seems to translate to what we do regularly as writers; we recraft the same themes in different ways so that they look new and make more sense and strike us differently. And collage art can also be meditative – taking apart, reassembling, shaping, changing …
In playing with collage art over the past few days, I rediscovered the art of the altered book. I had explored altered book art a few years ago because several friends left over from me penpalling days had started to get into making this kind of art. For those who don’t know, it’s the taking apart and changing of books. Sometimes the artists merely paints the pages of the book or collages over them. Other times, the book is cut or burned and reshaped into a new design. Many times, found objects become part of the collaged piece; it starts with a book as three dimensional canvas and becomes a work of art.
At the time, I didn’t get into doing this type of collage myself. For one thing, I had something of an inhibition about tearing up books. Sure, it was re-using them and re-purposing them and that’s fine. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to deface the books I owned. And I also was exploring photocollages at the time and felt that’s where my own artistic inclinations were best expressed. However, I’m seeking something new these days for creative expression and think that altered books might be a good step forward for me.
I have a bunch of books that I’m done with. They aren’t worth keeping around and they have no monetary value for resale. They aren’t in good enough condition to give them as gifts. And I don’t believe in just throwing books away. So perhaps trying my hand at some altered book art is a good choice right now. More importantly, I’ve recently discovered a new type of altered book art that I hadn’t seen previously. It’s called “found poetry”.
The artist chooses words on the page of the book to create a poem. The other words on the page are scratched out or painted over or collaged on top of. The poetry words stand out amidst an artistic creation. I’ve always loved the pairing of poetry with images. I’ve always liked collages that incorporated text. And I enjoy the idea of using words already on a page to create something that reads entirely differently than the original author intended. It’s an interesting creative challenge and one that I think can be used to open up new channels of thinking, a means of allowing new creative ideas to flourish.
Question of the Day: What experiences with altered book art can you share?
Related links: Altered Books by Judi Riesch, Karen’s Whimsy Altered Books, The Importance of Collage Art, Altered Book Artists
[Tags] altered book, art, creativity, writing, collage, books [/Tags]
In the past few months, I have taken to rarely eating meals. As a writer with a home office, I have frequent access to the refrigerator and the pantry. As a result, I regularly eat all day long. To cut down on calories and make the most out of my near-constant snacking, I have taken to really enjoying small plates throughout the day. Tiny plates decorated with a couple of orange slices, a single spiced egg and a chunk of pretzel bread make for a wonderful morning treat. An afternoon plate of a single slice off of a sushi roll atop spinach with a side of grapefruit has enough flavor to feel filling. Until the next snack which might be cheddar cheese and spple slices or a tiny bowl of taste-infused soup. The more that I’ve come to enjoy these periodic treats, the less interested I’ve become in big meals. They’re overwhelming, uncomfortable, distasteful.
What does this have to do with writing? Well, I attended a poetry event last night. (It was an inspirational North Beach poet affair, the details of which can be read about over at my San Fran Voice blog post.) And while I was there, I realized that poetry is strikingly similar to these little plates of food which have come to serve as my sustenance. The poetry reading lasted only an hour. For many events, an hour is just getting things started. But for poetry, an hour is plenty. In an hour, you can catch the tiny snippets of phrasing, the intensity of language … the flavor, if you will. You do not need more than this to feel creatively full.
I remember only a few specific lines of the poetry from last night. The line in the image above by Jessica Loos (which I hope I’ve quoted correctly) stood out because of the way that it touched raw truth with such simple phrasing. Another line of hers which I remember distinctly was “his echo punched the beauty inside me”. Who needs to know the entire story behind the line when the line itself is so poignant? Who need the entire three-course-meal when the appetizer alone can satiate?
The truth is that I will probably never be entirely satisfied by poetry as I am by small plates of food. I will always need to fill my mind more with the lengthy books that put weight in my hands and ideas in my brain. I will forever escape to the tales of fiction books when my own tales are boring or unbearable. I will always turn to the pages of non-fiction for advice, information, inspiration and more. But poetry serves an important purpose. It gives us what we need in tiny bites. When there isn’t time or need for more, poetry can fill the hunger.
[Tags] poetry, creativity, writing, life, language [/Tags]
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