Gnome Hope

gnome 1b, originally uploaded by blueathena7.

Couple days ago I snapped a bunch of pictures on my porch because it struck me how wonderful the sun was lighting everything in its afternoon glory. After watching Amelie I have loved gnomes. I had liked them before, but now I want to have one just like the gnome in the film. For now I will be happy with the two dollar store ones I have hanging by ropes on my porch. The sunlight on this one played just enough shadow. Summer colors.

Video: Piano Lessons

I came across this woman telling this story on one of the video-sharing websites. She's quite a character. The story proves it. :) Enjoy.

Parrot Talk

fern transulcent

fern transulcent, originally uploaded by blueathena7.

Took some pictures yesterday because the sunlight was just so much, and the light was colliding with the fern that hangs on my apartment's back porch... This is a picture where I zoomed in with the macro setting on my camera. I didn't really spend a lot of time composing the picture, etc, and that might show. But I like it. This is one of the little treasures I spy in nature sometimes that makes me pause and appreciate it. Light and shadow, color and its hues affected by light and shadow. I love walking under trees on a sunny day, looking up and seeing through the leaves. Nature's "stained glass."

Prompts for a Friend

1. Reach beyond dictionary definitions and write about the growth of a poet, yourself or another poet you admire, and the stages they came to be the poet they are today. If writing about yourself, see if you can foresee the poet you imagine you will become.

2. A journal is found under an old desk in an old house. The entire journal is full of writing in a foreign language unknown to you. After flipping through it for a date, you find a photograph. Describe your impressions, thoughts, conjured feelings.

3. "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." - Albert Einstein
What sources? And in what way do you hide them in creative endeavors?

4. If there are not Great Truths recognized and agreed upon by all people, there are some Great Truths each of us recognizes or values. What are yours? How have they aided or halted your actions?

5. Think of one of the times when you first appreciated silence. Maybe it was late at night after the neighbors have all gone to sleep. Maybe it was during a test. Maybe it was on a busy street during business hours and yet you sensed silence. Describe in detail the kind of silence you recall, your thoughts, observations...

6. Reverse senses. Choose an experience to write about, one your recall or one you imagine. Instead of describing the taste of something with adjectives used to describe taste, use adjectives reserved for one of the other senses. Choose any of the 5 senses you want to be substituted.
Examples: The juice was jagged when I bit the lemon. The trumpet blast filled the air with a bitter odor.

7. Listen to a song, preferably one without lyrics, and contemplate the images it draws up, whether they are memories, imagined scenes, fantasy, etc. Write.

Meet Me in the Music

Movin' Fiddler, originally uploaded by blueathena7.

Meet Me in the Music. Can there possibly be a better title for an album of old tunes and songs from Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia that make you want to dance, wander mountain paths, or enjoy a drink or two at the pub? Part of the enthusiasm comes from the musicians themselves, Erynn Marshall and Chris Coole. Erynn's energetic fiddlin' to songs like "And the Cat Came Back", and "Maggie Meade/The Darker the Night" brings a smile to my face and I can't keep my fingers or toes from tapping along the tune. Chris' own banjo composition "Copper Run" is one that I particularly enjoyed of him playing solo, reminding me of a sunny yet rainy day, listening to raindrops on a tin roof, and feeling good.

One of my favorite songs from this album is "New Orleans." She includes in the linear notes that it is an old war song she learned from Melvin Wine, a well-known West Virginia fiddler. The tune starts with a contemplative banjo melody which opens into the singing of the fiddle's contemplations. Erynn notes that the song is related to "Shady Grove," another song I have much enjoyed.

Another tune which struck a chord with me is "Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies." After referring to the linear notes once again, I find that it is "a slow march version of a popular Irish tune called 'The Blackbird' that goes even farther back as an English ballad." Again, the West Virginia fiddlers Erynn has learned from has also influenced my taste, since this tune's version hails from Edden Hammons. When I first heard this song I envisioned the Appalachian mountains full of green trees, twisting ivy, tall grasses and wildflowers swaying in a late summer breeze, much like I'd imagine a Queen of Earth would be doing. Meanwhile, in the clouds and on a breeze, a child-like spirit tip-toes from mountaintop to mountaintop in a playful manner, a smiling and happy mountain nymph maybe. I might just make some piece of artwork to attempt to match the beauty of this song.

Two other songs I love on this album are both composed by Kentucky fiddler J.P. Fraley: "Winds of Shiloh" and "Maggie Meade." This "spooky" song, "The Winds of Shiloh", is definitely eerie when heard by a lone fiddle on a late Saturday afternoon as the sun sets in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, like I did one day when we stopped for a visit in Owingsville on our way to a music festival outside Morehead. The added stroll of Chris playing his dreadnought guitar and guest Andrew Downing playing bass gives a "walk through the woods" feel to the tune. Just make sure it is a haunted path you're traveling when you're listening to this song; it just won't feel right otherwise. "Maggie Meade" is a tune I will always remember because I have a clear image, and favorite photo (pictured above), of Erynn recalling a part of the tune as we were driving to Morehead. When I hear this tune I imagine a barmaid working hard, but teasing her patrons as she glides and flirts. Something is mysterious and haunting about her, like one of Odysseus's sirens. At each crooked turn in the tune, a wink, smile, and sly gesture accompanies it as she weaves her spell over the drunken patrons. Then the song segues into "The Darker the Night" which picks up the mood and starts the rowdy party of rough-housing and mischievous follies. It is true, old-time fiddle and banjo tunes strike up my imagination that paints itself continuously as the tune progresses and turns more crooked.
I highly recommend a visit to their website: hickoryjack.com

Also, here's an article link about Erynn and Meet Me in the Music:
Merriweather Records Ltd.: Artist bio and press releases

Free-writing and Poetry Plans

So I stumbled across an interesting writing prompt online. Write a brief short story which has these three elements in it: a bomb shelter, a fairy tale character, and yourself. This is what I came up with.

After entering what appears to be an empty bomb shelter, the journalist found a large scrap of paper laying on the ground by a tall shelving unit. The shelves were full of books instead of canned food. She thought this was odd, but focused her attention on the writing which covered the scrap paper completely. After a few moments turning the paper around and over again, she found the start of what appeared to be an account of what took place in this bomb shelter.

"We don't have much time, but I am one of the few who can explain on paper what happened to us and maybe one day someone will be able to help us. I am Goldilocks. The year is 1942. There is a war ravaging the world. We all managed to find a shelter large enough for us to safely hide as nuclear bombs are mushrooming everywhere above ground. Soldiers are at the entrance to this shelter threatening to disintegrate the doors and annihilate us. Us being me, the three bears, the billy goat gruffs, Snow White and her seven dwarfs, Cindy and her prince, the last unicorn, the three little pigs and the wolf (he is sedated for now), and many others. I don't have time to name us all, but I hope you will be able to remember us all and bring us back. Where have we gone? Well, Tinkerbell and some of the witches got together and came up with a spell. We're still in this room, but we don't take up as much space. Each book is not only our stories, but ourselves also. Hopefully this spell will work and the soldiers will have not harmed us disguised innocently as books. If the spell did not work, then we will forever be lost. Please, if you are a friend, do what you can to bring us back from these pages. We are always changing and we must live off the page in order to grow with society's ever-changing ideals. Please, we beg you, be our friend."

The journalist stared a few more moments at the scrap of paper wondering what to make of it. The bomb shelter was situated beneath a poet's home, long dead after having published poetry and photography chapbooks most of her life. Considering the nuclear war was long over, the journalist could only imagine that this scrap was a random piece of imagination from the poet. A creative piece not tarnished by mass consumption. After looking at the books, a collection of beautifully illustrated fairy tales, the journalist called for her friend to help her pack the heavy volumes into the car for her own personal library.

In other writing endeavors, I intend to complete the Lexington Lives poems by the end of the summer. I have some research to do in the Lexington Public Library and maybe at UK's library's archives. In order to get another 15 poems out I will have to delve deeper into history of the area. I may have the collection span all years of the 1800s and 1900s. I had set the limit to early 1900s, but then again, there is a poem set post-Vietnam War. When that collection is complete I hope to create a chapbook and publish it.