Music & Poetry Mash Up: Same Love - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis + Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds - William Shakespeare

marriage - joe heller

same love

+

let me not to the marriage of true minds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds   
Admit impediments. Love is not love   
Which alters when it alteration finds,   
Or bends with the remover to remove:   
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;   
It is the star to every wandering bark,   
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.   
Love ’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks   
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,   
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.   
  If this be error, and upon me prov’d,   
  I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

 

War and Words - Story & Poetry

 short stories from the long war

It is not you who will speak: let the disaster speak in you.

—Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the Disaster

 

Ten years.
 

Not even poetry can rock this disaster to sleep.

 

I Was In A Hurry

Yesterday I lost a country.
I was in a hurry,
and didn't notice when it fell from me
like a broken branch from a forgetful tree.
Please, if anyone passes by
and stumbles across it,
perhaps in a suitcase
open to the sky,
or engraved on a rock
like a gaping wound,
or wrapped
in the blankets of emigrants,
or canceled
like a losing lottery ticket,
or helplessly forgotten
in Purgatory,
or rushing forward without a goal
like the questions of children,
or rising with the smoke of war,
or rolling in a helmet on the sand,
or stolen in Ali Baba's jar,
or disguised in the uniform of a policeman
who stirred up the prisoners
and fled,
or squatting in the mind of a woman
who tries to smile,
or scattered like the dreams
of new immigrants in America.
If anyone stumbles across it,
return it to me, please.
Please return it, sir.
Please return it, madam.
It is my country...
I was in a hurry
when I lost it yesterday.

"I Was in a Hurry" by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Elizabeth Winslow, from The War Works Hard, copyright 1993, 1997, 2000, 2005 by Dunya Mikhail. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

 

More:

Revisiting Iraq Through The Eyes Of An Exiled Poet

 

Iraq War – 10 Years Later

 

Writing the War Out: How One Veteran Has Used Writing to Confront Trauma - Nina Porzucki

Fire and Forget: Stories from the Long War -

 

Credible Information, 1999 - 2003 - Mark Pawlak
Dear George Bush - Kristin Prevallet

Artist of the Day: Still - Kat Hannah

still

Although the title of this strange and wonderful painting suggests stillness, peace, tranquility, that thin red hoop illustrates the nature this day, (mine), perfectly.

Some days you jump through hoops. Or, skip on one foot, then the other through whatever hoops are in your path. Other days it's possible to dodge them altogether. And then there are days when you float through very slowly.

What is your experience with making it through hoops?
---
artist bio: I'm Kat Hannah and I create imaginative, yet strangely familiar figures, with the occasional oddly behaving animal thrown in the mix. Following a fine art degree in sculpture, primarily of large metal found objects, painting of a narrative nature has emerged as my primary focus. These figures, at times bittersweet and reflective – are much like the times in our lives.

Artist of the Day: Dogwood - Carolyn Cochrane

dogwood
 
daffodils

tulips

hyacinth

dogwood

It does not phase me at all, I mean one little bit, that it snowed all day.

I'm resolved the snow is just spring in disguise.

---
artist bio: Hello! I'm Carolyn Cochrane, a 35 year old self-taught photographer with a passion for creating beautiful images inspired by nature. My eyes are always scanning my surroundings for meaning and beauty. I've always been captivated by color, textures, shapes and light. From the time I was very young, I've been a crafty right-brained gal, fascinated by art. For years I searched for the right way to express myself creatively but could never find the perfect fit. I've dabbled in music, painting, jewelry making, scrap booking, crocheting…the list goes on and on. When I finally gave photography a try at the age of 32, I knew I had found my true passion. I've always been so enchanted by the beauty and wonder of our natural world. There's nothing I love more than being outside on a beautiful day with my camera. My photography has a pure, clean, uncomplicated style. For me, the simplest of subjects are often the most powerful. I am smitten with the process of digitally enhancing my images. Creating different moods through the use of color, light and texture is the best form of expression I've ever found. A little piece of my heart and soul is in each image I create. I especially LOVE colors and the moods they evoke. To me enhancing the color in my images is like painting, but without the mess! Nothing thrills me more than when an image I create has an impact on someone else. It's my hope that my work will inspire and touch you. Our world is full of such beauty and it is my ultimate pleasure to share it with you. Sometimes photography can take us where words can't. 

Artist of the Day: the bird had flown - Brooke Schmidt

brooke schmidt

'In the window full of ferns
there hung a birdcage, unlocked.
The birds had flown, all but one
that lingered in the green, its three
notes of wood and water climbing
through the fronds, the miles and
miles before it enchanting the
recollection of flights in a previous
life before the egg.'

Kintnersville, Pennsylvania based artist Brooke Schmidt's found poem constructions are lovely. So are her Polaroids taken on a vintage SX-70 Polaroid Land Camera.
---
artist bio: I work in a little white studio in my backyard in Pennsylvania surrounded by boxes and trays of book words, cocoons, bird skulls, feathers, tiny bottles, pieces of garnet, leaves, wings, chunks of beeswax and measuring tapes. My degree is in painting but I mainly work nowadays on paper ~ sewing, collaging, poem-forming and sculpting from unusual materials. My altered books include my narrative prose and poetry, often gleaned from within the framework of what is found inside the book; finding my words as part of a larger story already told, much like we do in life. Some of my work deals with brevity and solitude and the awkwardness of life, while other works are about connection, cycles, fullness, beauty. The beauty of living, however it is done. I love using objects and images that are symbolic of these ideas, like wishbones, feathers and ocean waves. My polaroids are taken with an SX-70 Polaroid Land Camera with mostly expired Polaroid 600 film. Instant film delights me and the hunt, capture and whirr of the process is deeply fulfilling. I photograph my daily life and travels.

Music & Poetry Mash Up: The Gods Are in the Valley - Dana Levine + Rabbit Runs a Destiny - Duquette Johnston

churny

Rabbit Runs a Destiny

+

The Gods Are in the Valley
The mind sports god-extensions.

It's the mountain from which
the tributaries spring: self, self, self, self—

rivering up
on curling plumes
from his elaborate
head-piece

of smoke.

His head's on fire.

Like a paleolithic shaman
working now in the realm of air, he

folds his hands—

No more casting bones
for the consulting seeker, this gesture

seems to mean.
Your business, his flaming head suggests,

is with your thought-machine.

How it churns and churns.

Lord Should and Not-Enough,
Mute the Gigantor, looming dumb

with her stringy hair—

Deadalive Mom-n-Dad (in the sarcophagi
of parentheses

you've placed them)—

He's a yogi, your man
with a hat of smoke. Serene, chugging out streams

of constructed air...

Mind's an accident
of bio-wiring, is one line of thinking.

We're animals that shit out
consciousness, is another.

The yogi says:
you must understand yourself

as projected vapor.
Thus achieve your

superpower.
 

Artist of the Day: Dream Beast - Tracy Stokes

beast

bunny

hatted

elvis

I discovered this artist earlier, but haven't been close to a computer since early morning. Looking at these paintings is a fine way to close the day.
---
artist bio: My name is Tracy. I'm a self-taught mixed media artist living & painting on the slopes of Devil's Peak in Cape Town. I was born at the tip of Africa and grew up in the desert landscape of Namibia where I spent my childhood years playing in the dust, stepping on thorns and running free in dry riverbeds.As soon as I was old enough to leave home, I headed back for the bright lights of Cape Town. London followed a few years later, and before I knew it, I was married, with two children and pushing forty. For a while I thought I’d never get home again. But my homing instinct was strong, and I found my way back to the Mother City in 2008. Once safely ensconced at the foot of Table Mountain, I started creating, and I haven’t stopped since. This is how I really found my way back home. These days I spend my time painting, exploring the delights of the local countryside and hanging out with my family and other fun folks. My website: http://wildish.co.za
My Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TracyStokesArt

Green Day: 17 March 2013

lucky

irish

ireland

luck
 

Artist of the Day: Follow Your Heart - Nadezda Bokovikova

follow

signs

free

train

Following your heart is a simple process unless your heart can't decide which direction to take.
Latvia based artist Nadezda Bokovikova painted stones remind me to not take art or life so seriously and that sometimes art is right under my feet.
---
artist bio: Thank you so much for visiting my simple and quiet shop. It is full of Mother's Nature touches and kisses. I love so much the materials what I use for making this unusual, warm and cozy things. And it is full of real life when you see it, touch it, wear it. I love these beach stones so much! They are so simple, so quiet... But every stone is so beautiful! Especially when you look at it longer - you see its own story, its secret patterns and you love it more and more. And you want to be quiet, meditative and happy like this little stone...You can follow my blog: happy-emotions.blogspot.com and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zenpebbles

Poem Therapy 12:10 PM 13 March 2013: Immortality - Craig Morgan Teicher

Immortality

I feel like Emily Dickinson did, running her pale finger over each blade of grass, then caressing each root in the depths of the earth's primeval dirt, each tip tickling heaven's soft underbelly. I feel like Emily alone in her room, her hands folded neatly in her lap, waiting forever for one of those two daguerreotypes to embalm her precious soul.          At my most attuned, the present is a pair of wings stretching forever in all directions, flapping calmly, calmly flapping. But as soon as I notice how happy I am, how close to the sun, there I go plummeting into the background of the same damn painting as ever.         If I could reach my hand out to you now, would you take it? How do you think it would feel? Warm and soft and certain? Or like Emily's: clammy and brittle as hardened paste? Is that not how you imagine her hands? Look again—they were like that, otherwise she could never, would never, have written those poems. --- Dear Craig Morgan Teicher, I imagine Emily's hands would be cool and small, the tiny bones prisoners, wrapped inside my own warm hand. Although the image of Emily's hands as clammy and brittle as hardened paste is stark in its desert bone beauty, I respectfully suggest that you take another look at the poet's hands, folded into each other like sleeping birds in the folds of her skirts. Emily's hands are innocent. Her eyes reveal the ice chip pressed into her heart. By whom? it is uncertain. Yes, her eyes and the faint pressure of lips pressing into each other communicates her unapologetic capacity to send us, her readers, plummeting like Icarus into Breughel's green ocean, with her unflinching words and criminal dashes. But those hands, those unblemished, supple hands wrote hope is a thing with feathers. Sincerely, Danna P.S. I am curious which other poets you have pulled their flayed skins up over your own and walked around inside.

Artist of the Day: Wading in the Sargasso - Jamie Bollenbacher

wading

times

repressed

Jamie Bollenbacher's photographs are mysterious and disturbing, and portentious. Looking at them I feel as if I have inadvertantly crossed into a kind of twilight zone, just before the scary music comes on and the hair raises on the back of my neck.  I love a photograph that evokes strong emotion!

Columbus, Ohio based photographer Jamie Bollenbacher does not have a bio, so I have written one for her.
---
artist bio: I'm an Aries. Enough said.

Artist of the Day: Confetti - Danna Ray

danna ray

Despite the overturned and slightly submerged lawn chair, this painting feels oddly hopeful, like the first wild rumpus days of spring.

It could serve as my autobiography today.
---
artist bio: To find out more, please visit   groundwork  & dannaray.com & featured interview.
 

Poetry & Music Mash Up: Whim Man Mammon - Abraham Smith + Noble Heart - PHOX

dj

(check out SXSW 2013 Music Preview)
noble heart

+

whim man mammon
secret soil coital
the dove there
sounds blonde as
whipped oil
please appeal to
wimpling skies
journeying trees
there is but one fence
bone true and
one blockhead dog
inside
to rend
the smarts
of trees
at journey's end



 

Artist of the Day: Still Life of Cow Skull with Pink and Ivory Roses - Lucy Snowe

lucy snowephotography

Lucy Snowe is one of my favorite contemporary photographers.

This photograph is an ode to Georgia O'Keeffe stark, and hauntingly beautiful paintings of bones and blooms floating above desert horizons.The word that comes to mind to describe the feelings they evoke is lush.  

Other than her gorgeous paintings, what I admire most about O'Keeffe is her fierce dedication to her vision. And to her own bent. She followed her heart, her muse, her own voice. No matter what. She quit her suffocating teaching position to paint. She took long walks. Alone. She never let the fact that she was a woman in the male dominated art world intimidate or stop her.

She painted what pleased her. She did exactly what she wanted.

It has to be said that she had a powerful ally and financial backer in her husband Alfred Stieglitz, which, really helps one be true to oneself.

Her singular dedication to her work, has been thinly described by some scholars as verging on bloodless. The reality is that Georgia put her work first, just like her male peers. Her stoicism during her husband's affair, and then her calculated retribution on the other woman after his death is one part chilling, and one part yougogirl worthy.

She remained in New Mexico when husband Stieglitz was ill, and even when it was clear he was going to die. She loved him. He loved her. After he died, she eviscerated his lover, and returned to the desert.
---
artist bio: My husband is a cowboy, riding horses, raising cattle and peacocks, tooling leather, and can't understand for one minute why in the world anyone would buy a photograph of a little dog wrapped up in a scarf.

Poetry & Music Mash Up: Burning the Old Year - Naomi Shihab Nye + A New Life - Jim James

aletheia schmidt
A New Life

+

Burning the Old Year
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.  
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,  
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,  
lists of vegetables, partial poems.  
Orange swirling flame of days,  
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,  
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.  
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,  
only the things I didn’t do  

Artist of the Day: Magic Carpet - Dawn Siebel

magic carpet

summer picnic

tea party

american gothic

marie antoinette

farm children

I love Dawn Siebel's reimagining of classic paintings, and her innovative painting style.

I truly wish there were magic carpets on which it were possible to soar above the landscape and escape for a brief time.
---
artist bio: Old photographs began appearing in my paintings in 2001 within months of my parents giving me all the old family photographs. I love history and exploring the effects our culture has on our thinking and our lives. Incorporating these photos into my work seemed a perfect way to explore these themes. My story paintings begin with an archival scan of an old photo that is glued and sealed to a wood panel before being transformed with oil paint. The only thing sure to survive is the original face; I may transform everything else. More recently I have incorporated found paint-by-number paintings into my canvases. 

Artist of the Day: Burden of Evolution - Maria Oliver

 burden of evolution


balance


monsoon

Buy a Print. Save a Life.

I just discovered this artist today and love her style very much. Read  Maria Oliver's bio below for perspective.

I love Oliver's Burden of Evolution print. Evolving is difficult, but not as difficult as stasis. I had a realization literally at 9:15 A.M. that all the petty betrayals I've shrugged off as nothing, are indeed something. They are an indicator that I've been betraying myself for a very long time.
---
artist bio: Hello, Dear Friends. Our family is trying to help Maria and her husband fight a serious illness that Maria has been battling for the last few years. Before she became ill, Maria was a talented graphic designer and artist. We are raising funds for her medical expenses by trying to sell her artwork, as Maria decided to. All proceeds from the sales will go entirely to her medical needs. Please look at our page and when you decide to buy, know that your money is going towards a good cause of saving a life.

Artist of the Day: New Orleans Voodoo House - Sherrie Isenberg

new orleans voodoo house

Well folks, it's been a day of the ordinary and otherworldliness. Ordinary: the business of work and quotidian duties. Otherworldliness: a strange and wonderful new idea.

This photograph expresses the day up to this moment.
---
artist bio: I come from a family of very talented artists, so I'm very familiar with the term "living in someone's shadow". But I'm actually proud and grateful to be there, because it only motivates and inspires me to be the artist that I've longed to be all my life. My whole family, including my children, inspire me almost on a daily basis.  My interest in photography began when I was a kid. My first camera was a Kodak Pocket Instamatic, with an extender on top and flash cubes. My model was our toy poodle, Sophie. Fast forward a few decades (I won't say how many) and I'm shooting with a Canon....not top of the line, but the nicest I've ever had the privilege of shooting with. Then I discovered my new love....CS5. I love the whole post-processing phase of my workflow...that's when I'm "in the zone" so to speak. When I'm most able to express myself. I only hope that I am able to convey and communicate the story and the feeling behind each and every one of my images.

Poetry & Music Mash Up: need me less and I'll want you more - Marilyn Hacker + Chained - The xx

indoor garden n3

Chained

+

Untitled (You did say need me less and I'll want you more)
You did say, need me less and I'll want you more.
I'm still shellshocked at needing anyone,
used to being used to it on my own.
It won't be me out on the tiles till four-
thirty, while you're in bed, willing the door
open with your need. You wanted her then,
more. Because you need to, I woke alone
in what's not yet our room, strewn, though, with your
guitar, shoes, notebook, socks, trousers enjambed
with mine. Half the world was sleeping it off
in every other bed under my roof.
I wish I had a roof over my bed
to pull down on my head when I feel damned
by wanting you so much it looks like need.

Artist of the Day: Sign - Lela

sign

around

pass

live
I love these prints. Love them!

The first begs the question, how many signs do you need before you believe? For me, it's in the 10 to 33 range.

I could hang Aberdeen, Scotland based artist Lela's typographic prints on a wall in every room of my house. (I reread this sentence and although it was not my intention to be inadvertently threatening, I am keeping this as is, because it makes me laugh)
---
artist bio: I live in sunny Aberdeen which lies on the North East Coast of Scotland. I love to draw, paint, design and am forever on the look out for that little bit of something special. I hope you enjoy my artwork and my special vintage finds.