:)

oh, i am worn out. i'm very glad tomorrow is saturday and i can sleep in a bit.

after finishing the beast yesterday, i started priming another canvas of the same size. i've noticed that doing the grunt work, the prep work, keeps me hungry for the "real" work. the nuts and bolts of a practice are very important- the little things that keep you rolling forward. my shoulder muscle is sore and it feels good.

i haven't enjoyed such a big explosion of creativity in a long time it seems. but i guess (maybe) (possibly) i haven't been myself in a long time either... and these things are linked. chained. padlocked together.

for awhile there, i think i mistook the dreams other people held for me for the dreams i have for myself. i think i got really hung up on what other people expected or wanted and lost sight of what i want to do with my life and time. and i think that happened because for awhile there, the two sets of dreams lined up. they matched. and so i didn't notice right away that my dreams were trying to change. or maybe i did and i got sad about it, resisted it. the death of a dream can be a painful thing.

but it isn't a bad thing. hard, but not bad. and it's actually quite freeing to get to a place in life where trusting my instincts is the right thing to do. to have the ability to trust them is wonderful. a whole new way of seeing comes in to play and i begin to trust myself and trust the work in a deeper way. fearlessness breeds fearlessness. confidence breeds confidence. i feel better and better. i'm being myself. i'm opening up. i'm experiencing a tremendous wealth of new ideas, new interests. and this gives rise to new dreams. amended dreams. some dreams just needed a bit of a tweak and that's happening now.

and reading has been such a large part of that. reading widely, not just sticking to what i know. i actively search for new material, new ideas, contemporary authors and poets and bloggers. and writing every morning in my notebook. first thing. first cup of coffee and the pen in my hand. that practice has been going on for about 2 years now and it has made all the difference.

so today, i'll be mindful of these things. read and write and go jogging with my dog. the sun is up and the sky is dry. i'll do the grunt work and get a healthy sweat going and i will trust that all these things matter because they DO make my life so much better. and i won't worry about a damn thing.

happy friday. ;)

untitled as of yet...

this monster is about 5 feet tall and actually backs you up when you want to look at it... very much like a snarling dog, like a pissed off mama. i am happy and full of fire.

the rampage continues.


untitled
58" x 50"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2010


p.s. Richard Longo's influence shining through! :D

very much a fever

the storm has arrived. down down down it comes, dropping the white sky all on my roof and windows. drops dancing wild and mean. it is okay by me. i've been feeling much the same way lately. the urge to pour, to drop, to spit. and so i have been- all over my massive canvas. 5 feet tall, a snarl in oil.

my secrecy over the new work will end soon. but the fury of it needs a bit more time. privacy is a requirement. it feel like i'm building a bomb. or several bombs. it is a strange collection that might in fact splinter in to two separate bodies of work. icebergs and Jon Benet, her tire swing. a shower drain. an angry animal. there is a common cord the twists all this work together but i don't know yet how to name it. for now, i just go go go. draw paint write read scribble scribble scribble and make another pot of coffee.

monday!

i have coffee in my cup and a fresh layer of deep grey oil down on a super massive canvas. the scent of it laying in every inch of my small home. a wonderful start to the week, to the day. and it is sunny already. i'll suck up the sun while i can. the rain has not finished with us yet and will be back tomorrow for the majority of the week- no outdoor painting for me... or jogs unless i want to get drenched again. but it's alright. i've been working working working and feeling good about myself. i don't mind the rainy days so much anymore. it's become my acceptable excuse to be reclusive and spent the entire day reading, writing, drawing, painting in my pajamas, drinking too much coffee, and forgetting about the dishes in the sink.

i spent the weekend stretching canvasses and writing a short story. it was nice to step back from the internet. more and more i've been feeling the desire/need to step in to natural light and away from the glow of this rectangle... to spend more and more time with the work and digging through ideas. i've been reading "The Triggering Town" by Richard Hugo, a book about writing poetry. and the subject of finding one's voice is applicable to painting too. in fact, i think it's not something a person only wrestles with once. i think that as i change and grow and explore, my "voice" needs to change and grow too. what worked last year, what felt true to me last year, has shifted a bit... and so i wrestle to shift the voice, marry it to who i am today. right now, i feel that voice is erupting in such a fiery, honest way. it is exhilarating and comforting and all the pieces of my world begin to line up... begin to make sense again. it is relief and an honor and something i am very protective of at present. and proud too. not in an egotistical way, but that sense of pride everyone needs in order to keep chasing the dream... self-acceptance.

last night, i started reading "The Land of Green Plums" by Herta Muller. every single line, every word in this book is a fucking gem. and already, i am inspired in such deep, personal ways. it is shattering and lovely. i only got to page 17 before i decided to let all those words sit in my brain and my stomach overnight. she's a powerhouse. absolutely so. and something about the search for voice, the things i've been wrestling with, Richard Hugo's book, my own writing and the dreams i have for it, elsie on my living room wall, huge and beautiful and full of secrets, images images images and then the passage in her book on page 9:

"The child goes on talking. As she speaks, something gets stuck on her tongue. The child thinks, it can only be the truth sticking to her tongue like a cherrystone that refuses to go down. As long as her voice keeps rising to her ears, she will wait for the truth. But once her voice grows silent, thinks the child, everything will turn out to have been a lie, since the truth has tumbled down her throat. Because her mouth failed to say the words and ate them."

such a bell! such a bell rung out in me when i read this, curled up in my white quilt last night, such a huge haunted resonant thing cried along with this passage and i thought... isn't this what we artists are all doing??? talking, moving, exploring in order to stumble across small truths here and there? or at least to avoid the big lie? and when we stop trying, when our voices no longer vibrate in our own ears and we fall silent, the "lie" sweeps in. i tend to think of the Lie as resignation. i will not be resigned. no no no. there is coffee in my cup and huge canvasses clogging the living room and i finally got more of the lovely 9XXB pencils. there are books in the case and ideas everywhere and the sun is out and the dog is snoring sweetly next to me. the day is wide open. no resignation. none. never.

good morning!

friday morning hijinks!

wrestle around on the living room floor, get your dog in a leg lock, and grab your camera, kids!





Inga as Frank the Bunny


:)


p.s. polka dot pajamas: very necessary.

take a load off

my mind is full of ideas and images and bendy twisty itchy, in love with so many things. i spent most of yesterday in research mode and so i'm a bit worn out now but it's the good kind- the soreness that lets you know you worked hard and that it's okay to take a little break, which i'm really bad about, and so today i will. there is a huge value in remembering to do the "normal" things... taking the night off to watch a movie or go picking through antique stores or taking a walk. the sun is up and shining, it's not too cold, and i feel happy and hopeful. it's a good time to let go of abstract thoughts, give my brain a break, enjoy this beautiful day, and do a bit of grunt work maybe instead: priming canvas... washing the dishes... or maybe simply enjoying the light outside. happy friday, everybody! you earned it!

smarty pants! :)

my reading list swells and swells. thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday's post! VERY VERY helpful and insightful and encouraging and greatly appreciated. THANK YOU!


p.s. the conversation continues over at Roz's blog! come on over if you'd like to keep talking. ;)

hmmmmmm...

(this post is all over the place)



um... i've been noticing for awhile now that poets (in general) don't really seem to like each other much... or even try to appreciate each others work... unless its work that is very close to their own work... and i'm talking about most poet blogs that are being maintained now, not poets of the past... although maybe it does have something to do with The Past, an inherited lineage of sorts... learned bias and aggression and intolerance or some sort of love affair with the notion of being a Genius... but my concern over this is basically: if no one really likes each others work... and everyone thinks everyone else's work falls short... and no one is really all that willing to appreciate the work of poets who aren't members of their own small club of aesthetic or conceptual concern... then... is it even really possible to be good at poetry? or do we all just make work for a very small segment of the population... for people who agree with us and like the things we like?

(if that's the case, i'm cool with it. it'd actually be a relief to have this confirmed so let me know.)

i don't know. i've just been noticing how catty and loud-mouthed poets seem to get about other people's work just because it gets a bit of attention. it's jealousy, yes, but it's odd to me that a community would attack itself over every single little difference so LOUDLY, so PUBLICLY... and maybe that's why poetry has fallen to such a state of disfavor among the general populace???

i think poetry is very important but a lot of the conversations that exist on the interwebs are LOADED with sarcasm and anger and animosity... i mean, really, to a very uncalled for degree. it makes having a sense of community on a larger scale (outside your own club) kinda impossible... i know it's definitely been a turn off to me and i definitely don't feel comfortable involving myself or asking questions in most online poetry discussions or blogs... and everyone is saying "no! I'M right!" and i didn't think that one could really get away with that attitude when it comes to art. aren't we are still learning? isn't this supposed to be more about questions than answers? isn't there supposed to be at least the common appreciation for exploration? for wrestling? for investigating? for risking getting it "wrong"? maybe i'm naive or i misunderstood the theory i read but i thought we were beyond the ARTIST IS GENIUS, ARTIST IS GOD thing. and i may have naively hoped that poetry (all art forms really) was about a little bit more than soap box antics and spewing hateful things at one another and was a tad more excited by variety than what i'm seeing.

if you guys follow poetry blogs have you noticed this too? are poetry classes like this? is it just the way the poetry world works?

i mean, there are definitely times when anger is warranted. there are the big issues of racism and classism and sexism and i'm all for a strong response to those things. i think it's heroic to stand up for certain virtues and that ethics should be a part of art... but intellect and creativity and ETHICS are NOT prized when there is a total reversion to name-calling and foot stomping and railing against other people's practices or modes of making. there's a lot of the i'm-smarter-than-you attitude floating around and it shuts the door on conversation and the exchange of ideas. in fact, it actually encourages thoughtlessness. and if someone fancies themself a writer than shouldn't they be able to express themselves with words in a more eloquent, intelligent, thoughtful way then dropping the word "douchbag" on people? what's up with all the personal attack? that is not "critique". if someone's skillz are lacking, that's one thing. but unleashing a barrage of complaints about them as a person or the magazine who published them and yadda yadda yadda is not only unnecessary and mean, but completely irrelevant.

i'm not saying that the poetry community can't be rowdy (passion is good), but it seems inclusive (on blogs anyway) of very malicious behavior and i don't see how that helps anybody. has anyone else noticed this? or am i frequenting the wrong blogs? or am i just overly sensitive?

in the visual art community there is an appreciation for the creative impulse, no matter what a person's work looks like, because, in this country, art is pretty much not appreciated by the general public. so... we're at least happy that people are interested and trying to learn and making exploration a part of their day. attacking them for being at-the-beginning does nothing to make art a bigger part of the dominant community. people need support at whatever level they are at and their interest in art should be encouraged. everyone is allowed to stumble and make mistakes and change their minds. if a person's work has failed and they ask for a critique, be honest. but why attack them personally? and why not offer some suggestions of how to make the work better? just pointing out what's wrong does not mean you've helped them. pointing out the "wrong" is not the same thing as pointing out the "right".

about

my elsie project has no time line, no real structure or end-date or expectation other than to know her shadows. the portraits are hard if i try to force them and so i allow her to show up when she wants. this way, the portraits move fast, furious, fiery, and with an intense sadness too. but also appreciation. also play. and while i work on these, sporadic and unexpected as it is, i also write about what it's like to make these portraits.

this is an excerpt from that collection- your poem for the day:


a bell peals the hour-
a ringing cupid
hung low.
a cup for the well-kept.

this cup is not for you.
your floor is covered in holes.
mice and the smell of them.
a sour mattress shared and dinner forgotten.

hard crusts and whiskers
in the sink. the horrible thing
that whispers in the morning.
eyes creaking, breaking hinges,

and mama still sleeping.


the bell goes on pealing.

you better run.
run run, little one.
run
run
pretty pretty
peeling peeling

3 days

that's how long.

this is the quickest an oil painting has come to me in a very very VERY long time.



Alpha
42" x 35"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2010
N.F.S.

for now, she rests safely in my private collection. this will not be the last time i render her likeness. not nearly. and so i must keep her and tend to her shadows. an angel on my living room wall. secure. whispering. loved.

i am growing up.

this morning everything is blue and grey and sometimes green. a new storm is either rolling in or rolling out. it is too early to tell. and yesterday it rained almost all day long. not that it mattered much, me locked up in my oils. i broke away from the canvas during a break in the weather so inga and i could obey The Almighty Jog and half way through it started raining again. not just a sprinkling, a hard rain, and we got pretty soaked. but there was delight even in that. and inga goes all frenzied and undone when her face gets wet, running and bouncing and jumping in all directions at once, a spilling frothing joy.

i hope today is along the same lines.

there is coffee in the pot and hazelnut cream and the scent of oil and rain clung up on all the windows. inga is sleeping next to me. the heater is on. it is a cold morning.

lately i've been feeling a strong need for detachment, for quiet, for distance. and it is not of the tranquil variety. not totally angry either. it is an odd ambivalence that seems to crave a great and impenetrable distance and lots of time spent in thought or allowing distraction to sweep my mind back up in to a pile that can function without becoming clogged with resentment. i am working my way back to the things that i believe in, the things that i think are relevant and important and necessary. i am mapping and collecting and investigating my attractions, my past, my loves, my hates... the card i've been dealt and the avenues i've wandered down and i've returned to a more fiery way of thinking... a rebelliousness of philosophy that does not allow me to let the circumstances of my life or birth dictate my present tense or my goals or accomplishments or dreams. i will not be the person sitting at the kitchen table, bitter beyond belief by way of absolute resignation, offering nothing but the excuse of suffering, nothing but the "it's not my fault" refrain, nothing but the callous insensitivity that seethes out of The Know-It-Alls of the world. i will not be that.

and of course i have compassion for those tortured, bitter souls. but i accept that i have no control over the beliefs and behaviors of others. i accept that i am incapable of becoming a savior. i have tried repeatedly to save people, to give them what they cry out for, what they need need need... and i have failed. failed each and every time and then woke up to see my life in shambles, the things i've undone, unknowingly, all along the way, all in the name of Help and Love and Service. i never stopped to make the judgement of whether or not the person on the other end of this was capable of respecting the sacrifice, of receiving love and help.

and so i am in a private war to not allow myself to become a cynic. it is not the only option. i could instead become a better judge of character. i could instead become more accepting of myself- my own limitations and responsibilities and proclivities and interests. i could instead take a good look in the mirror and ask that face "why are you such a push over?"

i've been asking myself that question for years, actually, but lately i've come across a couple answers. i see what my role in certain situations have been... and i know that i am not blameless. naive maybe, but not blameless.

and this naivety of mine is sly. i don't notice it the majority of the time and it has compromised things that i have worked HARD for. i can't allow it to continue. not now that i see it. and so, for the last several months, i've become more and more my true self, less and less obliged to work toward becoming "acceptable" to others, and the backlash is not fun but it is a necessary part of this particular journey. self-acceptance and self-investigation, evaluation, the private wrestling of belief systems, childhood craziness, desire, the root of desire, wrestling with the deep demons, the shape-shifters, the shadows that turn to monsters... it is hard work but it must be done. and i've been caught in this investigation for the better part of a year now and things are falling in to place, becoming clear, becoming obvious, thrown out in to a harsh, bright, unforgiving light. i see my flaws and faults so clearly. but i also see that not EVERYTHING is my fault. not everything is my responsibility. not everything is mine to fix or apologize for.

these lessons wear a person out. but not down. i have not been worn down. in fact, i feel gratitude for all this wrestling and writhing and strangeness. i think there comes a point in everyone's life, eventually, where this particular struggle becomes paramount. it extends to every area of a person's life. and it improves all those areas too.

i am on fire lately inside all of my interests. it's amazing. it really is. everyday i get up, pour myself a mug of coffee and go scribbling in my notebook for as long as i need to. this morning practice, this "waking ritual" of mine, writing while my brain is still too sleepy to censor, has led me to such a wonderful place of acceptance and honesty. and at the beginning of the year i made the decision to follow my heart, to trust the work completely, to only paint images that i was truly captivated by, and to surround myself with people who understand that, who know how important it is to go your own way, and this decision has made all the difference. i'm no longer afraid of anything. i can't begin to express what a relief that is. and how freeing.

images and words are searing out of me now and it is such a wonderful, painful, ecstatic, elating thing. i'm myself again. i'm happy with who i am and how i've decided to live. i'm not afraid to accept the consequences or responsibility of it. i like my work. i like my paintings. i like my drawings. i like my way.

all of a sudden

yesterday and today i am on a painting RAMPAGE! where did this come from????? i sure ain't complaining, i am HOT HOT HOT for it right now. GO GO GO!

i posted this poem last year for National Poetry Month and i don't care...

because it is RAD!




T: Karla Faye Tucker




Karla died a little death
each time her pickaxe fell.
All that coming made her deaf;
she'd killed & had her fill.

A Texas warden took her in
(the mug-shot turned out nice).
Karla Faye got born again
to give her life back twice.






-Jennifer Colin Scaife

human

it dawned on me yesterday while i was talking about art with my neighbor that i am currently in a phase of tremendous growth and change, and that it is both elating and PAINFUL. patience has become very very very important. because without it, i begin to place demands upon myself and my practice and my life that are not only unrealistic, but have nothing to do with what i truly want for myself.

i think, during times of rapid change and growth, it is very normal to feel that one's life is in a state of upheaval... and so gentleness becomes a mandatory thing. when i feel the chaos of change i begin to look outside for the cure. well, outside is loaded with ageism and sexism and, in this country, a general disdain for artistic, abstract, philosophic leanings and dispositions. most people seem to think that being an artist is just a whole bunch of happy fun play-time. it isn't. caring about the world, life, humanity, rights, wrongs, ethics... it's tiring to say the least. and it takes a lot of work not to become cynical.

but for the first time in years, i'm beginning to feel proud of myself again. i'm learning the hard way that perfection is not the goal and that i am allowed to make mistakes too without fearing that non-perfection means BAD BAD BAD. i am not a machine and shouldn't be expected to function like one. it's my responsibility to set that expectation down and possibly throw up a big fat middle finger to people who expect me to be a machine: no feelings, no offense, no opinion, just GO GO GO and don't you dare fuck up.

hmmmmmmmm. no thanks.

one of the reasons i like drawing and painting so much is that it is accepting and inclusive of (by its very nature) the inherent flaw of the human hand, the embrace of imperfection, the potential for accident and haphazard gestures. in that respect, there is an air of acceptance and forgiveness in art. and that's something everybody needs, including me. and so i will extend that kind of compassion to myself. i am not a genius and sometimes i get it wrong, sometimes i struggle, sometimes i fall short of my aspirations. but i also get back up again and keep trying. the images i'm working on currently and the writing i'm doing doesn't need to be "perfect" because the work itself is not about perfection. it is about respect though.. so as long as i approach my subjects respectfully and deal them the honor they deserve, the work succeeds. i choose to believe (or trust) that other people will see that quality shining through... that i really do care about the work and that i am giving it my all... my very best. and i will never water it down.

YAY!

saturday... which really doesn't mean a thing in terms of work. ;) art doesn't take breaks.

today i'm going out to the city to drop off the painting below and one of The Good Daughter portraits and a couple other things. fun! i always love gallery day!

and also... if you're in new york, HANG will have a booth at AAF. the shin-dig is may 6th - 9th. i won't be there but my paintings will be! yay! go see 'em if you can. artwork is always always always better in real life.

true story.

make it beautiful. make it romantic.

covering it in oil makes it easier to swallow.



private romance (Angela, age 19)
42" x 35"
oil on canvas
angela simione, 2010

go watch! it will make you feel better! elated even!

super timely, i'd say. especially based on the post below. isn't this what it comes down to?

this is your poem for the day.


(i HATE it that people are sticking advertisements in front of videos!)

feeling thankful for all the writers and artists maintaining blogs and talking about the struggle of this thing we do...

fear, shame, feeling wrong, feeling stupid...

these are the hitches we deal with. all of us. separately, alone, without a rope usually, without any clue of which direction to crawl in. artists and writers.

my sweet and dear friend who is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to writing, sees me struggle to get at whatever it is i'm trying to get at, and suggested i buy "The Triggering Town" by Richard Hugo. it arrived in the mail yesterday. i sat down on my stoop and read the introduction and first chapter right then. then i closed the cover and went inside and worked on a drawing. scratch scratch scratch, wandering with my pencil over the clean white, thinking thinking thinking. (in art school, teachers are told - ORDERED actually - not to yell at a student for doodling during a lecture. it is a way of thinking.) and i thought about how he said, instantly, right there on the first page, that his hope as a teacher is NOT that he can teach you how to write... but to teach you how to teach yourself how to write... that a student must find out how to write like them self.

i thought about this pretty much all day. it's something i already knew but it always helps to be told again. and i thought that it actually comes down to those hitches i wrote up top... finding a way through those things, but also going beyond the therapeutic aspect of writing. this is something i learned how to do when it comes to the creation of images. the therapeutic is often a starting point for my visual practice, but it is not an end. it moves beyond that. it aspires to more than an act of therapy. and this is a good thing! the image retains that part but it gathers other attributes, other aspects, other functions by the time the image is "completed". but i am having a hell of a time applying this know-how to my writing practice. i think sometimes, i luck out. happen to stumble out of the pen of therapy in to the yard next door- the land of art with a capital A. but it is occasional, momentary, unnoticed even. and it comes down to fear. my fear of saying the wrong thing and seeming stupid. hitch.

and then i read this post by our lovely elisabeth and i thought more and more and more about all these things, all these fears and expectations of writing and how they are inexplicably paired with the desire for love, to be a good person, to be understood, to not hurt anybody, to be fair and even and honest. and this struggle to find a true voice... and then the struggle to find the courage to use that voice...

because honesty is not always fair or kind or even.

that fact doesn't sit well with me either.

but i must find a way around it. it is a hitch.

and so i went back to richard hugo, curled up with him in bed and read read read until it was time to fall asleep. all his insights are somewhere in my brain, baking and turning and steaming.

i hear one of my painting professors voice boom in my head. my esteemed Jack, his face a mirror of robert redford's, and how i came to class all bent out of shape by Theory, and he said: don't worry about it. just keep on taking all the ideas in. you don't need to put them in order. keep taking them in and eventually they will find their way back out. their own way.

and so i go back to that day. that beginning. again and again, the beginning. the site of fresh desire, so rife with confusion and fear, is fertile ground. and trust is the sword.

how do i achieve that? how do i get my hands on that sword? how do i learn to use it, wield it, care for it, polish it?

Jack said: just paint. (for now)

Hugo says: just write. (for now)



okay.

this makes me smile

drunk sonnet 14 by daniel bailey from blake butler on Vimeo.

dear mr. butler,

i especially like the part where you go "oookay oookay ooookay" and then you rub your face and let your finger dally behind your ear and this makes me what to zerbert you on the cheek.

:)

thank you for your time,

angela simione

this day:

already, the fear upon waking that yesterday or last year or back when i was 5 i did something so horribly wrong that I MUST PAY! and then coffee. caffeinate myself entirely, control myself with sugar, forgive myself with sugar, well up courage girl the same way you make a pot of coffee. just hit that beautiful button and snoooooze for 10 more minutes.

already, i lay under the all-knowing lamp. the lamp. his lamp. my dentist. i have a healthy breed of masochism in me so that i do not, at all, not for one second, dread the dentist's chair. the pain he might decide to inflict on me really does make me a better human being.

already, i read Vanessa Place's "Achilles' Shield" and was sent reeling and then, as luck would have it, i opened my mailbox as i returned, love drunk from the dentist, to find her book Dies: A Sentence waiting for me.

and my brain is floaty and ridiculous. spilling spilling like sugar or coffee or drool on the bib at the dentist- the person you can not hide anything from. your lies will humiliate you should you try so DON'T. that lamp is all-knowing.

and for all these reasons and more, i will most likely take a nap and then watch Blue Velvet.

"What are you doing in my closet, Jeffery Beaumont?"

i am lucky number 7

our fair Ana C. has started an online poetry magazine called new wave vomit and it is RAD RAD RAD! of course it is! because Ana C. is RAD RAD RAD! these are the facts. these facts are fantastic! fucking fantastic, to be precise.

she has published one of my "pieces". i don't know what it is. it is both a visual artwork and a poem, i suppose. redaction has a long long LONG history in poetry. but i think about redacted police documents when i make these things. and i picture it in a nice frame on a gallery wall hanging right next to a big oil painting, standing its own ground with the big dogs, functioning like art with a capital A. that's just me though.

thank you, Ana, for lending me your space. i love everything you do!

horse and vapor

what i want you to see comes at the very end of this short film of Banks Violette's show at Maureen Paley Gallery in London. Banks Violette became one of my all-time favorite artists the very second i first saw his work.






that is the tri-star horse projected over a mist of water.

if that isn't a poem, i don't know what is.

what fun...

childhood memories are funny. i love hearing them. especially what people thought about the world when they were small.

this morning when i stepped outside a big fat drop of rain splatted on my cheek and it knocked a memory loose that totally explains how i became a RAIN HATER.

i stopped jumping in puddles and playing in the rain pretty early in life because, if you remember, in the mid to late 80s (i was born in 1980) all of a sudden every body got FANATICAL about ACID RAIN. and i was told about this in school. and i have NO CLUE why GROWN UPS thought it was a GOOD IDEA to tell LITTLE KIDS about ACID RAIN when the hot movie at the time was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", a movie that included the death of sweet little cartoons by way of THE DIP! THE DIP = ACID and then i go to school, sweet and shy and gullible and full of trust, and hear all about ACID falling out of the sky. and when i welled up the courage to raise my hand and ask if the rain could hurt me, my teacher responded "well... just don't get it in your eyes." AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! how stupid are you????? why would you say that to a little kid? hahahahahaha! so then i became afraid that the rain could BLIND ME. geez. this is worse than being told we're in the "Last Days" and Jesus will return any second so you'll never get to grow up and be an adult and get married and blah blah blah. that tid-bit is directly responsible for all sorts of kids having a strange breed of peter pan-ism because LAST DAYS = NO FUTURE. do people really forget what it's like to be a child???? how scary and weird and big the world seems? how confusing? and how magic is real? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???? hahahaha!

i'm laughing my ass off right now!

good morning. :)

sneak peek

66" x 30"

this is only 1/3rd of what the finished size of this piece will end up being. the finished size will be 66" x 90"... maybe more. WALL SIZE! dang!

"I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine."

rainy days are dancing days.

DANCE, i said!

monday monday monday

i hid from all forms of technology yesterday and lay under a hard rain that is still coming down right now. life-long, i've been a RAIN HATER but suddenly, strangely, the hate i feel toward a wet day is thinning out of me. i was so pleased by the sound of it on the roof all day yesterday, and when i woke up and heard it, still here dancing, it made me feel clean and safe. seems, i have changed my ways. ha!

and my coffee steams. the sound of morning traffic begins. my dog is asleep in the spot on the bed that i rose from, curled up in the warmth i left there, snoring. i am in my black and white striped footie pajamas, hair twisted up in a ballerina bun, sitting cross-legged like a little kid, bad posture and all. my paintings look beautiful to me today and i feel a great hope that everything really will be okay.

a flood of writing has been coming out of me- all trapped in my notebook, things i don't have the stomach to type up now that i'm out of the moment when it first came pouring out. and the more i read, the more i write, the more i care about what writing can be and do... what art can be and do. and it's funny how once i gave myself permission to slow down, the work sped up and just comes searing out on to the page or canvas. the self-imposed constraints have fallen away and i am just chasing chasing chasing this thing, hopeful and flailing and hurting, trying my best to keep up with the heavy rush of all these ideas...

but it was nice to stay away from the computer yesterday. it was even nice to not read anything. have a day of rest. have a silly day, a laundry day, a movie day, a day full of cuddles and hugs and funny memories. and then sunday dinner with our neighbors. it has become a tradition. back and forth, back and forth, and so much loud, happy laughter. it feels like family. normal family stuff. and normalcy has become a great and deep comfort to me. whenever and however it occurs. simple pleasures. the small stuff. sitting down to a home-cooked meal, all together at a table, is something i do not take for granted. it is always wonderful. a big big blessing.

and so as the week wakes up, i wake up too; but i am careful not to put too many things on my TO DO list. the rain helps me out endlessly in that regard.

the world is green and grey outside. and cold, cold, cold. i will stay in my footie pajamas for awhile longer. drink coffee. enjoy. be still. be satisfied. the rain beating down. the traffic sounds. a snoring rottweiler named inga. the click of keys under my finger tips.

good morning.

we were kids

maybe we are all suffering,

grief stricken and sorry and flattened under so much shame.

and all those simple hopes i had when i was child



light up,


bright with hurt.









(video is goth in that bad way but i really like the song)

poem to fit the day...

.


GHOSTS



Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract nor pale,
their breasts as limp as killed fish.
Not witches, but ghosts
who come, moving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.

Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
fat, white-bellied men,
wearing their genitals like old rags.
Not devils, but ghosts.
This one thumps barefoot, lurching
above my bed.

But that isn't all.
Some ghosts are children.
Not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink teacups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.




-Anne Sexton

(BIG SMILE)

back on my good grey horse this morning. already already.

it's funny how quickly perspectives shift.

yesterday, a miraculous thing happened: i began a new oil painting. something about priming and sanding and smoothing new canvas made me hungry for it... to revere something. and oil painting is a very reverential thing- the history of portrait painting bleeding through... no matter the subject... it's always a portrait... and they say, in some way, always a self-portrait. i tend to agree with that. all work is, to some degree, autobiographical. even if only in terms of aesthetics. and this is a perfect way to perceive it. a perfect way to proceed. why work on something you're not at all attracted to? that doesn't speak to you? why spend hours deep in the wrestling if you aren't captivated by the image itself?

and this outlook i've given myself permission to cling to - of recognizing, day by day, what image or form or material speaks loudest to me - has unleashed such a rapid love. a quick-moving, diligent, reverential love. and so i slid the black oil all over and kept going, kept going, kept going. and i realized that maybe the thing that has been bugging me specifically about oil painting isn't the material and isn't the image, but rather my handling of it. specifically, my technique. it needed to change a bit. evolve. i had locked myself in to a procedure.

but all the drawing i've been doing has refreshed me... let me see images in a different way... let me see materials in a different way. how painting is an act of honoring. a mode through which we (i) esteem something. and drawing can be that way too, but it's more intimate... full of traces and stains and the sweep of the human hand throughout its entirety. if you look close enough, you will find a finger print. and that's why i am so attracted to drawing lately. the intimacy of it. the imperfections and explorations that are inherent to the media itself.

but yesterday, something shook loose and i remembered that i do in fact know how to paint. that i know how to paint wet-into-wet. that i don't have to stick to the procedure if the procedure no longer aids the exploration as a whole. it was a fast, hard, happy realization and i worked late in to the evening.

it's funny... the things a person forgets. and how frail my ego gets some days. days when i say the worst things possible to myself, convinced everything i've ever done is stupid and pointless and that i'll never get it right. haha! all artists do it. and it feels like hell at the time. but i have to laugh at myself and just keep going.

it is bright and beautiful and green green green outside. maybe i'll paint outdoors today in the good light.

i'll be back later with the poem of the day. i'm enjoying just thinking about painting right now and want to sit with my coffee and look at the canvas for awhile this morning before anything else. it's romantic. :)

rest.

my brain is mush. i spent pretty much all day writing yesterday and i am burned down to a stump as a result. lethargic in almost a cold way... and so i'm priming canvas. work work. and oddly enough it makes me miss my oils. the scent of them. maybe it isn't the material that i feel loathsome toward but the image itself? i know i was trying to force it in a direction it didn't want to go, and me with it.

the grunt work is cleansing though. the aching shoulder muscle. the pains of progress. ha! and possibly a nice long break from technology today. i need the outside air and commonplace objects and regularity today. the "regular" of the world outside.

of Images, my Roland says-

"In the amorous realm, the most painful wounds are inflicted more often by what one sees than by what one knows.


4. What wounds me are the forms of the relations, it's images; or rather, what others call form I experience as force. The image - as the example for the obsessive - is the thing itself. The lover is thus an artist; and his world is in fact a world reversed, since in it each image is its own end (nothing beyond the image)."


perhaps i need a little break from all the images today?

thanking my lucky stars

"A Lover's Discourse" by Roland Barthes (my forever mr. wonderful) is the best possible thing i could be reading right now. it pulls together, in such sensuous ways, all the things i've been reading, all the things i've been thinking, all the ideas, each splinter. and his eloquence is breath-taking. hard edged and shining. it is just like reading a book of poetry. it IS a work of poetry. and resistance. VIVA! he charts the site where all logic crumbles. logic falls away, unusable. reason becomes a frail thing in this land.

a fear.

an exaltation.

gorgeous. and every word, a true a word.


i have tried to pick a favorite passage to share here. i fail. there is no favorite if favorite means 'only one'. every word is necessary.

work in progress

the days and weeks of this new year are moving faster and faster. spring arrives and so the new year isn't quite so new. usually, i'd be a bit sad about this. about time moving this way. about how quickly change occurs... or the stagnation of one day blending with the day before and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. but not this year. this year's current and quickness have been a pleasure: a burn. the opposite of 'shiver'. quick quick and buzz buzz and as the day goes dark, i do mourn a bit that it went so quick, but i become excited for morning. i become exhilarated by the prospect of waking up and crawling toward my drawings, again and again crawling, like a reverent servant, like a child to its mama, something lasting that way.

the sun is up and the morning traffic has slowed. i drink coffee. my pen flies. all morning all morning and my courage wells up a little. my desire to share and roll around in the same space the same place the same warmth as another. a hug. a breath.
an excerpt. of me.


-------------------------------------------------------

(non-)





the day swings.
slices my face.

my breath gone.
i'll die one day i know it.

cancerd, like mama,

and hollow.



swing swing,

it slices my face.

i strain.
i swell.

i breathe.
the day,


expanding.



-



hidden increments, like hair
lost in the carpet.
lashes tangled and breaking.
the crust.
the crumbs
catching on my lips.
my mouth, a ring of salt.
dislodged sleep.
the muttering. the thin whisper.

i am embarrassed.

i am afraid to walk alone on the street.

i might mutter more places than in front of my own safe mirror.

that face i've got.
that iffy friend, staring staring.

and the words she uses. words like a mallet. mouth like a tool drawer. all that clanging. teeth slamming, words on broken hinges. she holds them flatly on her tongue. she is always ready to spit.



-



knock knock and i hide in the other room. i hate the sound. i hate the way people come knocking on the door. i hate it that i'm expected to open the door. that's what that knocking is. expectation.



-



i have an ugly face in photographs. very ugly like a monster. i am ashamed of photographs that have my face in them. i feel sorry for the rest of the photograph for having to carry the weight of my ugly ugly face. the crushing weight of the thing. the thing. twisted. shadows that must apologize.

apologize or die.

the apology: i am not ugly outside the rectangle. outside the rectangle, i do not have to apologize to the landscape for containing me. there are vultures on the ground. there are baby teeth in the drawer. there is my brother next to the old, deep frog hole, 6 feet tall and speaking: "just like an alcoholic, only with people who are bad for you."

there is a despair.

there is a despair.

don't you know anything!


striving
striving
striving
striving

always




no. i don't know anything.

and i am embarrassed.




-



you are in this room.
it is a safe room.
the lights are off.
or the lights are on.
whatever you like.
whatever you are most comfortable with.
whatever you prefer.

there is no noise
except that of the comforting fan at the foot of the bed.
or maybe there is no bed.
maybe the bed makes you sick.
maybe the bed makes you sore.
maybe you prefer the deep chair.
whatever you like best.

close your eyes.

there is nothing right about it.
there is nothing wrong about it.
there is no structure.
it is okay the dream has collapsed.
it is okay the diamond shards have lodged themselves in your eyes.
the shards are yours. you can make them hurt if you like.
you can make them beautiful.
you may decide to hurt. it is okay.
you can call these things by a name.
you can choose to name it.
you are in a safe room.
the lights are off.
the lights are on.
whatever you prefer.
the bed or the chair.
shame will not find you.
there are diamonds.
who are you thinking of?


my father

what about him?

i love him.

is he the person you love most?

yes.

where is he?

gone.

where did he go?

i don't know.

where are you?

i'm not sure.

do you miss him?

yes.

what does that mean to you?

i don't know who i am anymore.

without your father?

yes.





-




lay me out something nice to wear, mama. lay me out your hair.
give me your pearls. i'll stick them in my ears.
give me your tall shoes
so i can be tall like you.

ever since i was a little girl.
ever since i was a little girl.



-



you have done everything you've been told to do. in motion. but you haven't done everything. you've left the best part out. the piece i want the most. you've done everything you've been told but you haven't enjoyed it. you are still yourself somewhere in there. you haven't enjoyed it and this is why i turn away. this is why you are not loved by me. you have not been my true squire. you are to be "protege". you are to be "daughter". you are to be my MINE. and this is the cloud that drops the angry word. i own the cloud. i will send out swarms to you. the gnats will fuck your face. you won't be able to breathe without sucking them in. down down and horribly, grossly, in to your lungs. you. that body. my MINE. you have only satisfied my orders with movement. with body. with hair. but that thumping thing still utters a desire outside of my MINE. and that squirming grey thing still sends juice in a direction unchosen by my MINE. this is why you are hated. this is what names you BAD DAUGHTER. you have not surrendered the last piece. you have not given me my MINE.


-



the day swings..




-

this poem makes my heart hurt, swollen up with those bad memories and days: beautiful, fearful, crushing weights.

SHARD


Where one by one you turned my faces up
toward the sun's surface
and drank them like deer water.






-Aase Berg
(from With Deer)

education:

mine has been an odd one, that's for sure! full of corkscrews and resistance and anger and ecstasy.

and it absolutely continues to be that way.



did you know i graduated from continuation school? ha! it's true! i was in honors classes prior to that and it was pretty hilarious to see my old class-mates pop up there too. ha!

it was there however, at the school for "bad kids", that i read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, the first 1000 page book i'd ever read, the first book that i felt really did leave an indelible mark on my life... it changed everything.

and it was while i was enrolled there, after having read that book, that i became a california state art scholar. which made everybody do a double-take! hahaha! one day i was a step away from dropping out and the next, i had a medal in my hand. very odd!

i can't tell you how long i lived as a statistic, how close i was to always being a statistic. and i think it was my hatred for that "statistic" that made me hungry for something more, something else, something Other. that, and a teacher who believed in me.

it was then that the dream and act of writing, of being a writer, really really woke up. woke up hard and fast and burning and searing and flailing. wild! and totally uncontrollable. i always had my notebook with me. always. and i held that dream tight. i decided to follow it. i decided to believe in myself the way my teacher had: my lovely, lovely Mrs. V.

after graduation, i spent 7 LONG YEARS at the same junior college, plugging away and trying to devise a plan for somehow finding the money to go to a university. it absolutely took that long for certain doors in the financial aid department to open up for me. and so in the meantime, i decided to keep in practice, keep going to school, keep working, keep trying, keep searching for a way out of my circumstances.

7 years of life-drawing. of every single art class the school offered. every writing course. and religious studies and history and literature and math and psychology. everything that i had even the fainted interest in. and at the time i hated it.

i felt caged and ridiculous. i felt like a fucking loser. i spend a lot of time feeling entirely lost and completely helpless and utterly stupid... full of anger and regret and despair. of course, despair. like most teenagers, my dreams where way too big for my little town and it was soul-crushing to have to stay put that long.

but now, i couldn't be more grateful for the weird meandering line my education has followed.

during those 7 years, i worked too. some really un-fun jobs. i wasn't just hanging out (though i did a fair amount of that too and had all the horrible experiences everyone has). a couple times i held down two jobs while going to school. and there was one really, really bad relationship tucked up in there too. and for awhile, i double-majored in english and fine art. after a year and a half, art won out. at the time, i figured that if art wasn't what i ended up doing for the rest of my life, it would at least lead me to what i would be doing and i've been following it ever since.

i was 25 when i got to art school. the first day of class was my birthday, in fact. best present i ever got. and the best thing about it- i got it for myself. my circumstances had changed. it took a lot of heartache to get them to change, i won't lie. it took a lot of persistence and failures.. but they did change. and i changed my life with my own two hands.

that memory in particular is the one i lean on most when i'm feeling defeated. that i did it once, i can do it again. all i have to do is keep trying. and that fighting spirit is what i lost during the big bad 2 year depression. i completely lost it. gone. and being without that strength of will was so damn painful, so scary. that little spark of rebellion, of refusal to accept one's circumstances as THE RULE, is so important. amazingly important. because until i die, the struggle and shit of the world will be mine too. the ability to believe in myself is the only thing that got me through the shit thus far. to have that spark back feels so amazing and securing and valuable. like a gem... or a childhood relic that has been saved from the yard sale.

and it was the dream and act of writing that kept me from slipping back in to the hated "statistic".

and so my education continues. it has not stopped. even that depression is part of it. even that has value now that i'm on the other side of it. if anything, my education has gotten deeper as a result. it's so much more personal and fiery, full of such exquisite twists. it is scary and angering and beautiful... this search, this reaching out. it's even embarrassing sometimes but it makes my life so full and alive and buzzing. i've never read so much in my life as i am reading right now. and i am actively seeking more things to read- things that are definitely not at Barnes & Noble, things that have to be hunted down, wrestled with, slept with, fought with. things that piss me off and offend me sometimes, things that really do challenge my ethics and force me to look inside myself and see why i believe the things i do. sometimes, my beliefs have changed. other times, they've been made stronger. trial by fire, to be sure. and all the while, i maintain a certain level of fresh naivety because naivety keeps you from feeling intimidated in a lot of ways. when you don't know any better, you're more able to just be yourself. you're open and interested and, in some ways, entirely fearless. just like a little kid. and since i was a shy child, always so full of fear, this fearless playfulness feels wonderful.

this is one of the reasons i get a kick out of things like National Poetry Month- a built-in excuse to be playful, to be a "nerd", to take charge of my own education, to make the rules up for myself, to cater to my own interests, to lavish in adulthood this way, to decide for myself what is worth-while. i love it!

education has a very broad definition... or, at least, it should. it is a life's work. at least i think so. and it doesn't stop after the degree is in your hand. in fact, in the 2 years since i got mine, all the stuff i read has really started to sink in... and it has made me so hungry for more. it's like i've learned how to see. lived experience is what all the theories and studies and ideas are derivative of. when we study, we're studying life in all its forms- all its beauty and weirdness and atrocity. if i have a definition for what "education" is, it's that: learning how to see. just see.

anyway, i'm feeling sentimental now. ha! i'll be back later with today's poem. there's more coffee to drink and more ideas to play with and it's still early. good morning. :)

search

yesterday it rained and rained. hard and constant. grey. dim. it felt like evening all day long. and i stayed in my pajamas, drawing and reading in bed, until it was time to get ready for dinner at our neighbor's house.

i read the introduction to Vitamin D- an artist bible if ever there was one... especially for those of us fond of working on paper. and the essay said everything i've been thinking about lately. ideas of mapping and charting personal environments... a "bedroom art" loaded with intimacy. what a perfect mirror. i eventually find myself drawing in bed at some point everyday. and today will be no different. there's just something about it, as an art and as an act, that fits so seamlessly with my interests right now. oil painting feels so final to me at present... a closed system... grand. and i don't want to do anything final or grand right now, i want to explore. if need be, get it wrong. i want to feel my way around, not worry about definitions... or anything definite. i want to crawl through the grass and pick up the fragments, stick them in my pocket, and feel around for more.

i'll move back to oil painting eventually. and probably sooner than later. but for now i need the intimacy of paper, the common attribute of it, a humble pencil in my hand.

it's the path toward "the right word" we've all been talking about so much lately... a truer language for me at this point in my life. the blacked in areas of my scratching, the white blankness that signifies loss or the unknown, the skipped over, the nexus of ALL COLOR.

and i know there is no "right word". but it is the search for it that counts. the hunting down of an honest mode. the defeat that must be overcome. persistence and honor and striving and finding. maybe these things are more important than "knowing".





Words




Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echos!
Echos travelling
Off from the centre like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road-

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.








-Sylvia Plath
(from Ariel)

Easter Sunday

and i think (in paraphrased ways) of my favorite part of the bible: if they'll not receive you, shake their dust from your feet.

and today also strangely (fittingly?)- the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. a day that always makes me sad. always always always. but thankful for his life, short as it was, as a proof of the absolutely gorgeous potential for nobility in man.

two "poems" for you this day:

weekend bliss

my cell phone is off and after my last post i crawled under my big soft white quilt and lost all these day time hours to drawing. drawing drawing drawing and, between yesterday and today, my quilt smells like graphite dust. it is a nice smell to fall asleep to.

but now i am starving! and i think it might be taquito time. :)

shaken awake

i was woken by a flash of a nightmare this morning. inga playing up in a tree and the big branch broke and she was there, writhing and making this horrible, low sound. a sound of total pain. and it was this sound, this sight of her writhing that woke me up and i couldn't go back to sleep. too full of that rush of terrified fear. i opened the door and there she was, wagging her tail so hard her whole body swung with it, and squealing with joy for a new day- everyday is the best day ever for a dog. every morning is a joyful, amazing thing. and i was so glad that it was all just a dream but the dream kicked lose some strange memories from my childhood and i've been writing all day so far as a result.

yesterday i started a new huge drawing of a tire swing. jon benet's tire swing. and i've started the second panel of it today already in between all my scribbling in my notebook. it is like this, only BIG! and in the blackest graphite.


Portrait of JonBenet Ramsey
24" x 24"
oil on canvas, 2008

it is an image i keep coming back to. an image that when people read the title they don't want to look at it anymore. and this response twists my heart but it also tells me the job is being done. it flips the switch. it achieves the movement of being "work" to becoming "text". it activates.

and i go back to it and i see myself somewhere in there... which probably sounds very strange... filthy somehow as i am obviously not a murder victim...

but there is something there, in her absence, that sends the shiver through me... like a memory than ran away. something lost. hidden in the fibers of that rope or in the shine of still leaves. i am called back. this images gives me a ground. it is Blackland as well. it is a homeland of a kind.

and it makes me think of charlotte delbo... she became a poet by having survived the camps. this chase to find a language, to find the one right word that would put the world right-side-up again... an image, a reflection by which one could know oneself, know the nature of things... the search for something that can assuage the strange and haunted heaviness of living... the guilt of having survived.




Auschwitz




This city we were passing through
was a strange city.
Women wore hats
perched on curly hair.
They also wore shoes and stockings
as is done in town.
None of the inhabitants of this city
had a face
and in order to hide this
all turned away as we passed
even a child who was carrying in his hand
a milk can as tall as his legs
made of violet enamel
and who fled when he saw us.
We were looking at these faceless beings
and it was we who were amazed.
We were disappointed as well
hoping to see fruits and vegetables in the shops.
Indeed, there were no shops
only display windows
wherein I would have liked to recognize myself
amid the ranks sliding over the glass planes.
I raised an arm
but all the women wished to recognize themselves
all raised an arm
and not one found out which one she was.
The face of the station clock registered the time
we were happy to look at it
it was the real time
and relieved to arrive at the beet silos
where we were taken to work
on the other side of town
we had walked through like a wave of morning sickness.






(from Auschwitz and After)

today, under a hard rain

killing kanoko. the gold cell and the blackest graphite. stained hands. hand to mouth. black lips black tongue Blackland. the title changes. the name of a place. territories and evidences. this land. this type. this time.

a hard rain.

good morning, all my loves!

i stayed up so late last night! so late that when the alarm went off at 5 i didn't even hear it. and when my sweetie tried to rouse me 45 minutes later, i sat up, looked at him, and my sight was shaky- something that used to happen to me during my last semester in school when life was GO GO GO and sleep was a rare gift. so i grumbled "one more hour" and laid back down and slept for 3. ha!

i went out to the city last night for one of my friend's openings. the show was gorgeous and i was so inspired and happy to be there. and i lost track of time laughing with people and meeting new people and, before i knew it, it was 10:45 and i still had an hour and a half drive back home, out here to my little spot in the countryside. but i had a fantastic time. it was one of those nights where it's so hard to pull back on the reigns and detach from the happiness at hand. amazing. well worth being tired. well worth the snag in my "schedule". ha! besides... it's friday and drizzling and i've already given myself permission to say the weekend has arrived. :)

lately, i've been spending my weekends with my nose jammed in a book and it has been such a gorgeous experience. i count myself incredibly lucky to have been exposed to the work of such amazing and skilled writers. and reading is so integral to my practice. such a necessity. this huge influx of ideas is my favorite environment- tall grass to roll in, warm and without judgement. and taking in all these words, all these images and metaphors and philosophies and theories and poems and gestures is so much like drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream on top. so comforting and safe. it's an experience in which i feel completely myself, completely at home. i hope the used books i ordered from amazon show up in my mail box today. especially "A Lover's Discourse" by Mr. Wonderful, Roland Barthes, my love. swoon swoon.

and of course, our big built-in excuse to be BIG FAT POETRY NERDS! YAY!!!!!

yesterday, after posting the first poem of the month by the untouchable Sharon Olds, i got in a wonderful email exchange with Jeff Callico about her work- how forceful and hard and gorgeous it is, and how, like Bukowski, she doesn't mess around with metaphor... she wanders the autobiographical and presents the shit, the mess, the joy, the jumble of living. and it made me want to read all her books all over again. to dive in to these black lines and float there on the rim of her life, the memories that crawl back and back again, that twist the present, that caress or corrupt a day.

so let us hold on to her black rope again. a double shot. she is worth it. and she is required reading, for sure.

a poem for Good Friday. ;)




The Pope's Penis




It hangs deep in his robes, a delicate
clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a
halo of silver seaweed, the hair
swaying in the dark and the heat- and at night,
while his eyes sleep, it stands up
in praise of God.





(from The Gold Cell)

speaking of which...

why i think paintings and poems are the same thing-

ed ruscha's enormous work "Nothing Landscape"




if you're in LA, the MOCA has it in their permanent collection. GO SEE!

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!

april is national poetry month and a damn fine excuse to read, write, think, and play with words, explore language, explore images, and get deep in the wrestling, rustling, torture that is ART. YAY!!! and i like to take advantage of april this way. LOVE, in fact! and so... prepare yourself! everyday, i'll be posting a poem here. sometimes one of my own. and i think i'll even commit some poems to memory this time around. it's been years since i've memorized a poem and april is a good month with which to practice commitment, fearlessness. poetry is very much engaged with risk. and also with the absurd. what better month is there to make an ass of yourself for the sake of getting closer to all those secret aspirations? :)

i think poetry is one of the best things on the planet. i really do. and it's everywhere. it is abundant and such a strange, painful, sharp form of beauty.

feel free, this entire month, to post anything poetry related in the comments section. feel free to email me if you want to discuss poetry and art/writing concerns. and PLEASE feel free to turn me on to your favorite poets and writers and artists. in fact I AM BEGGING YOU TO! i've said it so many times here that i think a painting and a poem are basically the same thing.

so lets kick off this poetry party with one of my all-time favorite poets, the undeniable Sharon Olds. in fact, this might be the poem i'll memorize.



THE UNBORN




Sometimes I can almost see, around our heads,
like gnats around a streetlight in summer,
the children we could have,
the glimmer of them.

Sometimes i feel them waiting, dozing
in some antechamber- servants, half-
listening for the bell.

Sometimes I see them lying like love letters
in the Dead Letter Office.

And sometimes, like tonight, by some black
second sight I can feel just one of them
standing on the edge of a cliff by the sea
in the dark, stretching its arms out
desperately to me.








(from Satan Says)