"This work is unlike any other, in its range of rich, conjuring imagery and its dexterity, its smart voice. Carroll-Hackett doesn’t spare us—but doesn’t save us—she draws a blueprint of power and class with her unflinching pivot: matter-of-fact and tender." —Jan Beatty
Dreamt I sat by a river, stacking stones, gray pebbles, that I built into a small curved wall, then dismantled, piece by piece, the stones smooth and slick in my hands.
Rocks act as the memory for our planet. By examining their elemental makeup and physical structure, scientists can understand the history of the earth. The fossil records left in rock formations literally describe our planet’s journey through time. Seen in this light, even the stones and pebbles we find in our backyards are pieces of the ancient past and the secrets of how we came to be in this vast universe.
It’s my oldest son’s birthday today. I never could have know, twenty-eight years ago, that I wasn’t just having a baby: I was meeting one of my best ever friends.
Make art about adult children. Or about best friends.
With my oldest son J, early 1989
9/21/2016
Make art about lighting a candle for someone you Love.
9/22/2016
Been thinking all day about living in other times. I would have made a terrible Victorian woman 🙂
Make art imagining yourself in another time, another era.
Spent a lot of time the last two days in traffic jams.
Make art about something unexpectedly positive arising from being stuck in a traffic jam.
8/25/2016
Make art about ceremony.
8/26/2016
Make art about grandmothers.
8/27/2016
Make art about spirituality or faith as a spectator sport.
8/28/2016
Make art about realizing you already had what you though your were looking for.
8/29/2016
Make art about finding family, or about the family you choose, rather than the one you were born to.
8/30/2016
Mercury goes into a three week retrograde, starting today. Careful with communication and travel plans.
Make art about something spinning backwards, or about a snafu in communication or travel.
8/31/2016
Make art about taking a shortcut.
9/1/2016
Make art about coming back home.
9/2/2016
Make art about a specific request from a child.
9/3/2016
Make art about dragons.
9/4/2016
Interestingly, the word dragon derives from two separate Greek words. One word means “a huge serpent or snake” and the other means “I see clearly”.
Make art about seeing the panoramic view, the big picture.
9/5/2016
Make art about getting your wings.
9/6/2016
Recently witnessed a young man in line at the grocery store pay for the purchases of the stranger behind him, just as an act of kindness.
Make art about an act of kindness toward a stranger.
9/7/2016
In that same grocery store line, the woman behind me, even after having witnessed the young man’s spontaneous act of kindness, ranted on about how awful young ones are.
Make art about being blind to what’s right before you.
9/8/2016
Soundtrack for the day: R.E.M.
Make art about losing your religion.
9/9/2016
Whoever the next man in my life turns out to be, he’s gonna need to love onions 🙂 or at least be tolerant of how much I love em.
Make art about loving someone in spite of themselves 🙂
9/10/2016
I have been diagnosed with Complicated Grief Based PTSD. PTSD is so misunderstood.
Make art about PTSD, about the echoes and scars of trauma.
9/11/2016
The sky was so blue that day.
Make art about the tension of beauty set against tragedy.
9/12/2016
“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.” (Proverbs 14:10).
Make art about healing bitterness. Or about finding compassion for a bitter person.
9/13/2016
“Where is a woman, there is magic. If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs, and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort with the spirits.”~Nzotake Shange. Ms. Shange has inspired me since my teen years. She still does, every day.
Pick a line from a writer who has inspired you for years, and use it to inspire art.
9/14/2016
Make art about the Harvest Moon. Or about an eclipse. Use either as a metaphor in a new and different way.
9/15/2016
Make art about stitches, something sewn together, or something coming apart at the seams.
9/16/2016
Make art about a late night visitor.
9/17/2016
We managed to surprise my oldest son with a birthday celebration today 🙂 Not an easy task to catch him off guard that way 🙂
Make art about surprising someone.
9/18/2016
Came home from my walk to find The Fisher King on TV, one of my favorite movies.
Make art inspired by a scene from a favorite film.
9/19/2016
Writing today about a particularly tough lesson I learned.
Many nations with atrocities in their past—Germany, Rwanda, South Africa—prominently recognize their painful history with memorials, museums, and monuments. This kind of trutful recognition, acknowledgement, helps with healing.
We have yet to do that in the United States. As Jessica Leber writes in the linked article below, “Even today, the nation is largely silent about one of its historical periods of shame: the thousands of lynchings that terrorized southern blacks right up until the Civil Rights era.”
We can do this, y’all. We can be brave enough to face our own nightmares. We have to, if we are, as a nation, going to heal and come together.
“The Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama organization led by civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, has, for the last few years, been working to place historical markers at lynching sites all around the country. At TED’s conference this week, the group showed a sneak preview of plans for a new national memorial to the victims of lynching that they hope to break ground on some time this year in Montgomery, Alabama.
“In America, we’re not free. We are burdened by a history of racial inequality and injustice. It compromises us. It constrains us,” says Stevenson. “We have to create a new relationship with this history.”
Make art about facing, acknowledging, being accountable for, hard truths about the past.
Seeking Submissions for Winter 2017 Theme Issue, “Imagining Peace”
Deadline: October 15, 2016
“We are dedicating the Winter 2017 issue of New Madrid to the theme of “Imagining Peace.” As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous.” We are looking for work in all literary genres that speaks to this arduousness and that defines peace not just as the absence of war, but as something dynamic in its own right. Possible categories of interest include: writing by peace activists and refugees, testimonies about immigration or international crises, travel writing, translations, and much more. An in-depth explanation can be found on our website. We will be accepting submissions from August 15 through October 15, 2016.”
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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