drawing

Dead Center – Atwood
Black ink lettering of Ann Atwood's haiku "dead center"

dead center
in the center of her flowers
Georgia O’Keeffe

Ann Atwood

I was cleaning out a portfolio of old drawings the other day when I stumbled upon the ink lettering I did for a past post on Ann Atwood’s haiku “dead center.” Back then, I wound up using the lettering for an overlay in a digital collage (reposted at the end), but with the perspective of time, I’ve decided I really like the simplicity of the original. So I rescued it from potential recycling and was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a “B-side” drawing as well!

Black ink wash and line drawing of woman singing

At the time of my original post, there was almost no information on Ann Atwood online. Her haiku were listed in numerous anthologies and the poems could be found on the internet, but the poet herself was a mystery. This seems to still be the case, as I found a post (click here) from the Haiku Foundation (featuring my collage – which was another pleasant surprise!) talking about the limited information we do know and calling for anyone with more to get in touch. The post also features many more of Ms. Atwood’s beautiful haiku.

Digital collage - purple paper with line drawing of woman and overlay of "dead center" haiku

The original digital collage for “dead center.”

Cummings – Politician

A comment about the texture of my drawings in my last post (thank you, Jilanne!), sent me in search of more “textured” ink drawings I’ve done. I found this one in the archive and so it’s back! By the end of his life, E.E. Cummings’ political views had tracked radically rightward. This has always been out of step with his avant-garde image as a poet – even when he was alive – and his political poetry has not had the lasting popular appeal of his love poems. But this two-liner of his is pretty priceless. While I stridently disagree with his politics, I choose to pluck this political poem out of obscurity; it has a universal feel about it and a sentiment most everyone has shared.

When I dug the drawing out to scan it again, I made the discovery of a B-side I had completely forgotten about! It goes with the texture theme of this week so here it is:

I first posted the Cummings-inspired drawing in early 2016: the original post is here. Have a great (and safe) weekend!

Phage Medallions

Viruses are pretty much all anyone can think about right now, with one specific virus dominating our waking moments (and maybe our dreams? I haven’t had any dreams featuring Covid yet, but I’m sure that will come). This is with good reason, of course.

I used to do research on viruses many years ago – but my viruses didn’t require me to wear “moonsuits” or need special facilities to work on them – they were bacteriophages (or phages, for short) and they only infected and killed bacteria. Phages were discovered during the First World War, typically co-credited to two scientists, one British and one French, working separately. This was the pre-antibiotic era, and so phages were hailed as the miracle that was going to save thousands of soldiers from dying from bacterial infections.

Phage treatment suffered from a number of problems and setbacks during WWI and afterwards, although it was successfully used. But antibiotics quickly eclipsed phages for treatment of infections in the 1930s and 40s, and phages were all but forgotten in the medical community.

Humans have a short memory when it comes to viruses, it seems – both good and bad. But viruses don’t forget us. As a former phage scientist, it has been heartening to see the renewed interest in phages as a potential treatment for antibiotic resistant infections. And see what happens when you get me talking about phages…a longer than normal blog post!

I did these two drawings to celebrate phages in the world around us. We used to go out behind the lab building and smear some dirt on a petri plate to find them – it was just that easy. Figured we could use something positive about viruses these days!

Live, Die: A Ghazal – Muske-Dukes

About two weeks ago, my grandmother passed away of natural causes (not Covid-related) at 102 years old. Her funeral was held last week amongst continuing coronavirus restrictions and the pastor noted that she was born during one pandemic (the 1918 Spanish Flu) and died during another – but that this isn’t what defines her, or anyone’s life.

Since she died, I keep coming back to this poem by Carol Muske-Dukes – maybe because my grandmother lingered in a semi-conscious state for almost a week before she died, maybe because it describes so accurately how we didn’t know how to let her go. I had done this drawing as a response to the poem 4 years ago – and when I went back and looked at it last week, it felt unfinished. Now that I had a face to go with the poem, I added the details and shadows it needed. I also added the final words of the poem onto the drawing directly, to fix them there permanently.

If you’d like to read the whole poem, which was part of a series of art-poem collaborations at The New York Times Style Magazine, you can go here.

My original post is here.

Little Lifts

polaroid film with a pattern of black dots and newspaper headlines

This collage also came out of my surreal headlines experiment – it turned into a micro-poem I was happy with and also seems to me to capture the contradictions of the world right now.

As I mentioned before, I found all of this expired polaroid film cleaning out my father’s house – and some of it wouldn’t develop at all and just popped out with a solid tan “unexposed” background (see above). Some did develop…sort of. So during the lockdown I’ve been making  collage/drawing on them and seeing where that takes me.
polaroid film with line drawing of close up of an eye
During the lockdown, I also started working through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft book of writing advice and exercises, trying to get more confidence in my writing. I’ve been posting my responses to those exercises over at Evening Satellite Publishing and if anyone wants to follow along or give feedback, I’d be most appreciative!

Exercise 1: Being Gorgeous
Exercise 2: Strong Emotion
Exercise 3: Am I Saramago

I hope everyone is staying safe and sane!

In the Desert of 2020

four black and white polaroids, two drawn with partial faces, two with collage of poem

in the desert

are tiny voices

the hunters of

nocturnal moments

 

It’s been a while since my last post – so I hope everyone is well and staying safe and sane during the lockdown. I will be gradually retooling this site to reflect where my life and art practice is at right now, so bear with me! (more…)

Overheard – I really wanted my middle name to be Thomas

MiddleNameOverheard.jpgFor a few months, I commuted to work twice a week on a bus, and this one was overheard on one such ride. Although this was the first “overheard” I wrote down, it took me a while to draw it. The young man who was speaking was talking to another man across the aisle, although the two did not appear to know each other otherwise. The disappointment of the young man with his mother seemed to revolve squarely around his middle name – no other example of her “failings” was presented.  Pen and watercolor pencil on paper by me.

To view the other “Overheards” in this series click on the title:
I Expected the Notary to be on a Unicycle
Meat and Potatoes, Myself 

Have a great Thursday!

Meat and Potatoes, Myself

This was the first Overheard I did – inspired by a snippet of conversation I heard on Waikiki Beach last year. The speaker was just so earnest, it drew my attention away from the ocean views. I wonder if he was actually talking about food, or something else? I did wind up being fairly literal and making the speaker a potato himself. You can see the other Overheard I’ve posted here. Have a great weekend!

Notary on a Unicycle and an Award!

NotaryUnicycle.jpgI’ve been working on a series of ink and ink wash illustrations of snippets of conversations I’ve overheard randomly – thus I’ve been affectionately calling them “Overheards”. The conversations are already out of context in most cases, and I’ve tried to heighten that by making the conversations between fruits and birds. Don’t know where this will go, but may I present to you the first one and say that there are more on the way!

Right before I left for my Asia trip, I was nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award by Steve D’Adamo of Red String Paper Cuts. Luckily, I don’t think the nominations expire, so here I am, accepting it a month later! Thank you, Steve! Thank you also for introducing me to several more really cool bloggers in your nomination post!

bloggeraward.png

To accept the award I must:

Thank the bloggers who nominated me and provide a link to their blogs.

Write a post to show my award.

Give a brief story as to how my blog got started.

Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.

Select 15 other bloggers for this award.

Comment on each blog to let them know I nominated them and link them to this post.

Thank the bloggers who nominated me and provide a link to their blogs.
I was nominated by Steve D’Adamo over at Red String Paper Cuts. Steve and his friend Jesse Gutierrez started RSPC not long after I started Illustrated Poetry and they have always graciously allowed me to hang around and occasionally contribute to their blog. Always good stuff over at RSPC! Thank you again for the nomination!

Give a brief story as to how my blog got started:
I actually have a confession to make: this was supposed to be an author blog. Towards the end of grad school, I wrote a novel – my first, to be precise (it was also my first serious attempt at writing anything non-science since college). Like most first-novel-attempts, it wasn’t very good, but also like many first time novelists, I didn’t realize that at first (it was definitely my baby). So I was trying to figure out what to do with this novel, how to get it published, and the first piece of advice everyone seemed to dispense in those days to aspiring authors was to start a blog. So I made a WP account…and then did nothing with it. I didn’t really want to write about writing and somewhere along the line, I realized a half-hearted author blog wasn’t going to cut it. But I didn’t give up on blogging and decided to blog about and connect with people through something I had always been really passionate about: art and poetry.  And I am so glad I did!

Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers:
I am probably the last person who should be dispensing blogging advice! But, if pressed, I would say: 1) blog about what you are most passionate about – doesn’t matter if that seems quirky or offbeat. Some of my favorite blogs on WP are quirky or about highly specialized topics and that’s what makes them great. 2) It’s your blog, it should be fun – it doesn’t matter if the prevailing advice is to post once a day or to write posts tagged with the top 10 trending tags, if that’s not fun for you, don’t do it. Need a blogging break? Take one.

Nominate 15 other bloggers – Well, it’s not going to be 15, and this is the part where the whole awards thing breaks down for me – my nominees are always “no strings attached” and I free them from any sort of obligation in regards to acceptance or post writing. It’s hard enough to find the time to post when we do! I hope folks visit and enjoy their blogs and discover new writers to follow.

I may have realized that I don’t like writing about writing, but I sure do enjoy it when talented authors do! In that vein, I have nominated 5 writers who I really enjoy following and often write about writing in an interesting way:

  1. Jane Dougherty Writes – I think Ms. Dougherty was the second or third blogger I followed and she very kindly endured novice-blogger me! Ms. Dougherty is the author of nearly a dozen books (by my count) and hosts fun microfiction challenges.
  2. Myths of the Mirror – this is D. Wallace Peach’s author blog and she posts interesting articles about writing fantasy (need to design a magic system, anyone?). Her series of posts about deciding to terminate her contract with her previous publisher and self-publish her novels was absolutely top notch and I highly recommend it.
  3. M.C. Tuggle, Writer – a writer of many different types of fiction, Mr. Tuggle posts on a similarly wide range of writing topics. I really appreciate that he scours the web and WP for good articles and posts about writing so you don’t have to!
  4. Kate M. Colby – I think I ran across Ms. Colby’s blog right after she started it, before her first book was published and she’s now on her third! I find her approach to discussing issues in publishing and writing to be refreshing and approachable. I also admire her systematic and businesslike attitude towards her own work and her decision to self-publish.
  5. American Writers Exposed – Sometimes you need some relief and a hilarious internet meme about writing and Ms. Jessica and Ms. Sandi post these alongside updates and articles about the nitty gritty of writing and publication. Their blog has the feel of a friendly support group for writers.

Okay! Thank you so much again, Steve, for the nomination! I hope everyone’s week is off to a good start.

Short Poem Saturday – Corn Moon – Summers

KXSX3001.jpgThis was an illustration I did last year, finishing it before I had to take my hiatus from this blog. I was in a “no outline” phase, practicing building up an image from repeated mark-making.

Although a corn moon usually refers to the full moon in September, at least there is the lunar connection for the Lunar New Year today. My apologies to Mr. Summers for the long delay between our correspondence and this post! Mr. Summers is a much decorated poet in many of the Japanese traditions. His personal blog, Area 17, can be found here! He also runs an organization, With Words, that brings poetry workshops into schools and to the public in the U.K.

Drawing (ink on paper) by me. Happy New Year to all!