Art with an Agenda

Refined

Linda Gass creates gorgeous stitched paintings of the Western United States. They're deceptively lovely; each one is also a map of environmental damage.

I talked to Linda about her work. “I try to lure people in with that beauty to get them to confront the hard issues we face,” she said.

Well, it worked for this viewer. I'm totally hooked.

Read more over at mental_floss.

From the Journals of Sylvia Plath

I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can’t be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.





Still nothing. I don't know where it's gone.

I've Tried Flint and Steel and Sulphur and Sunlight and Lenses and Gunpowder and Dry Wood and Straw and Concentrating Really Hard

But still nothing. No spark; no words come. With no other real option open to me, I'm going to take some time off from poetry, just until the words return. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know your favorite poem; I'm always glad to read new things, and there's no balm for the blocked pen quite like a good poem.

Stay well, friends. I'll be back.

(Not) Gone...

...Just checking in. I hope everyone is well out there in the ether. I've been completely devoid of any creative spark lately. Am I the only one? Is it astrological? Astronomical? Barometric pressure? Your guess is as good as mine.

In any case, I've joined a writing exchange and with luck that will prod me into my old, incessantly spewing self.

Can you believe summer is gone? It seems like a year has gone by these past three months.







photograph by Cari Ann Wayman

Nothing from Me, But a Timely Cartoon

"Please read---
If you did not purchase plums
for the icebox, they are not
yours. This means you, William.
Some of us cannot eat poems
when we are hungry."

Married to the Sea