19 May 2016
When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked,
When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable,
They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers….
–from “Half Omen Half Hope” by Joanna Klink
Make art about your hopes for the human race.
18 May 2016
I spend most of my time with 18-25 year olds 🙂 I call them Angel Babies, Angel Chirren. 🙂 I call them My Teachers. Yep. They always teach me more than I could ever teach them.
Make art about something learned from a young person.
Woke up hearing this 🙂 It’s a song I sing to my students. Yep. The future’s in good hands ❤
Rainbow Warrior – Martin Jondo
well dis one rainbow warrior
down ina babylon we´re chanting songs of freedom
and it go like dis brothers and sisters
said I am a rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow warrior
warrior of love now
we seh
war war dem fuss and dem fight
silly hypocrites well dem won´t unite
and I see dem fight a competion
well don´t dem know dis an impossible mission
but Jah love come to quench we thirst
we´ve enough of those dirty works
love a love a love a love a come quench we thirst
we´ve enough of those dirty words and
rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow a warrior
warrior of love now
so wah seh
so when I´m trodin´down in babylon
I just keep my heart so clean
so when I´m trodin´through the deadmans town
I just keep my love within
war war who fuss and who fight
is a murderer got blood in him eye
he´s down in a total illusion
feeling so smart ina devilious confusion
but a who concludes all the murders and crimes
is bringing peace and love and changing this times
well me and you well me and you
shall chant out more rhymes
toiling and spreading Jah wonders and signs and
rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow a warrior
warrior of love now
yeah once again we seh
said I am a
rainbow warrior
rainbow rainbow warrior
lord I am a rainbow a warrior
a warrior of love now
so weh weh so once again we seh so so
so when I´m trodin´down in babylon
I just keep my heart so clean
so when I´m trodin´ in the deadmans town
I just keep a rainbow within
said I am rainbow
said I am rainbow
said I am rainbow warrior in babylon
said I am the wickest said I am the strongest one
well I am a rainbow warrior in babylon
avoiding all wickedness in my heart on my tongue
oh love heh
we´re spreading love
yeah
we´re spreading love
yeah
13 May 2016
Headed off to teach a weekend Promptathon workshop at The Porches Writing Retreat 🙂
Make art about porches.
14 May 2016
Saturday morning at The Porches Writing Retreat, and we’re working on Voices.
Make art about the voice you hear down in the hall.
15 May 2016
I have a habit of collecting discarded photographs in thrift stores, those precious memories sold in estate sales, so many beautiful faces, so many voices, so many stories.
Make art about other people’s pictures.
16 May 2016
Had some sweet winged company.
A luna moth emerges from its cocoon with not long for this earth. The average lifespan is a week, during which time they have no means to eat (no mouths). Their week (and life) goal is simple: to reproduce. To make love, the strongest of human emotions.
Many observers believe this to be a reminder of the importance of love in our short time on this earth. Live and love to the fullest and enjoy every experience that gets thrown your way.
Make art about Loving fully in the moment.
17 May 2016
Okay, so the garden’s cleaned up and turned over, but it’s pouring cold hard rain outside. So I guess I’m sewing, instead of planting today.
Make art about having your plans thwarted.
This week, meet one of the most amazing writers and literary citizens in our community, Allison Joseph! Allison lives, writes, and teaches in Carbondale, Illinois, where she is part of the creative writing faculty at Southern Illinois University. She serves as editor and poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review, moderator of the Creative Writers Opportunities List, and director of the Young Writers Workshop, a summer writers’ workshop for teen writers.
Her books and chapbooks include What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand Press), Soul Train (Carnegie Mellon University Press), In Every Seam(University of Pittsburgh Press), Worldly Pleasures (Word Tech Communications), Imitation of Life (Carnegie Mellon UP), Voice: Poems (Mayapple Press), My Father’s Kites (Steel Toe Books), Trace Particles (Backbone Press), Little Epiphanies (Imaginary Friend Press), Mercurial (Mayapple Press), Mortal Rewards (White Violet Press), Multitudes (forthcoming, Word Tech Communications), The Purpose of Hands (forthcoming, Glass Lyre Press), Corporal Muse(forthcoming, Lucky Bastard Press). Her next full-length collection,Confessions of a Barefaced Woman, has been accepted for publication by Red Hen Press. She is the literary partner and wife of Jon Tribble.
I go back again and again to Allison’s work, but especially My Father’s Kites.
Buy Allison’s Books!
My Father’s Kites
http://www.steeltoebooks.com/books/39-my-fathers-kites.html
Praise for My Father’s Kites
“‘Tell me about the poet,’ urges Allison Joseph in the very first line of her remarkable new collection — and it is with insight, honesty and extraordinary technical skill that she accomplishes exactly this. My Father’s Kites is a self-revelatory collection of carefully wrought, jewel-like poems that explore the often paradoxical complexities of family relationships. Her strategy is tightly linked to her remarkable expertise as a formalist — a gift that becomes most evident in ‘What the Eye Beholds,’ a series of sonnets about her father’s flamboyant life, his gradual ‘dereliction,’ his inevitable early death, and its poignant aftermath. The arc of this sequence, flanked as it is by graceful villanelles and rondeaus. I cannot think of another contemporary poet who has done a finer job of combining form and content, to dazzling effect.” — Marilyn Taylor
Soul Train
http://www.upne.com/0887482472.html
In Every Seam
https://www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=34548
Wordly Pleasures
http://www.wordpoetrybooks.com/joseph.htm
Imitation of Life
http://www.amazon.com/Imitation-Life-Carnegie-Mellon-Poetry/dp/0887483860
Voice: Poems
http://mayapplepress.com/voice-poems-allison-joseph/
Trace Particles
http://backbonepress.org/chapbooks/
Mercurial
http://mayapplepress.com/mercurial-allison-joseph/
Mortal Rewards
Read More from Allison Online
20 Poems from Allison Joseph
http://www.culturalfront.org/2011/10/20-poems-by-allison-joseph.html
http://www.heartjournalonline.com/joseph/2013/12/1/two-poems-by-allison-joseph
http://atticusreview.org/september-featured-poet-allison-joseph/
https://sliverofstonemagazine.com/running-while-black-by-allison-joseph/
http://rlpoetry.org/extraction-allison-joseph/
http://www.bradley.edu/sites/poet/steel/poems/joseph.dot
Interviews
http://lunchticket.org/allison-joseph-poet/
http://www.thefourthriver.com/index.php/the-mark-of-real-life-an-interview-with-allison-joseph
http://www.midwestwriters.org/2014/06/interview-with-allison-joseph/
Hear Allison Read
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2TEGGSxUeA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BWP3KtEXpo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5E1KynLY4
Happy reading!
xo
Mary
12 May 2016
11 May 2016
I have a Creativity Promptathon Workshop Weekend coming up, and I always make small gifts for my participants. Nothing fancy, just something I made with my own hands. Small thank you for their trust and time.
Make art about a gift someone has given you. Or about giving a gift.
10 May 2016
It’s another rainy day here in central Virginia, another in a line of nearly two weeks. The Japanese have more than fifty words for rain, and there are 140 more at this link in a great op-ed from the times.
My yard is a swamp.
Right now, I’m thinking saturation, saturated, drenched, waterlogged.
Make art about different kinds of rain, or words for rain, or saturation.
8 May 2016
Under the weather and missing my mama this Mother’s Day, thinking about her hands–her mother’s hands, her gardening hands, her nurse’s hands. She never had a manicure. I can’t recall her ever having her nails painted at all, but man, it seemed the whole world rose from those hands. And now, I watch my daughter, a first-time mama, her hands so gentle and loving as she cares for my grandson. Yep, the whole world ❤ That’s what it is.
Make art about a mother’s hand.
9 May 2016
So many graduation activities this weekend, last grades going in, so many of these angel babies heading off to next adventure.
Make art about setting off into the unknown.
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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