14 March 2017
“One person saying Yes Yes and another person saying No No, that’s tension.”-Betsy Cox
Make a list of all the things you’d like to say No to, then make a list of everything you’d like to say Yes to. Make art inspired from these lists.
13 March 2017
I unfriended someone this morning on social media, a woman who leads with her “I’m a Christian” banner, but who daily and consistently posts things that are disparaging to others, about people and groups of people with whom I know personally she has little actual experience. She’s older, and has limited life experience, so I had alternately either ignored her ignorance or had tried, gently, to share my own experiences with the people she judged. Her fear, it seems, runs too deep. But this morning, as she posted multiple things mocking and denigrating millennials, I was just done.
Am I judging her? Maybe. I’ll think on that. Pray on it too. But for now, her persistent fear and judgment of people about whom she is ignorant are not something I want in my life every day.
Make art about judging, about judging through ignorance, or–be brave!–educate yourself on someone you have previously judged.
Joel Peckham is a scholar, essayist and poet who has published a book of essays, two books of poetry, and two chapbooks His work has appeared in many literary and academic journals including The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, The Black Warrior Review, Riverteeth, The North American Review and American Literature Currently he is an Assistant Professor of Regional Literature and Creative Writing at Marshall University.
“A Chevy up on blocks is only an eyesore
to the faithless.”-from “Husks”
In GOD’S BICYCLE, Joel Peckham’s fifth collection of poetry, he offers a spiritual road mix for 21st-century America. In poems that travel from the heartland through Appalachia to New England, he sings a song crafted from his own strange brew of off-kilter, irreverent psalms, prayers, hymns, aubades, and elegies in praise and homage to a fragmented but beautiful landscape and people. Drawing as much from rockabilly as Whitman, these poems are always intense and often exuberant, even in their struggle for the kind of hope that can “rise green and leafy from a bitter soil.”
Buy Joel’s Beautiful Books
Joel on Youtube
Happy Reading!
xo
Mary
11 March 2017
Spent the day lost in a book.
Make art about being lost in a good way.
12 March 2017
Dreamt a future conversation with my grandson, where we talked about what it meant to create home wherever you are, that our true home is what we carry inside us, from our experiences, from the ancestors. He nodded solemnly, as if he already knew this.
Make art about where home is, or how we create home.
10 March 2017
Make art about messages from the other side.
8 March 2017
Make art about collective power.
9 March 2017
Make art about the violence of poverty.
6 March 2017
Make art about the Other, about Otherness, about being the Other, about fearing the Other, about discovering the Other.
4 March 2017
In many cultures, the teaching of heritage and cultural practices is carried out by members of the extended family, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. In certain cultures, this relationship and teaching is formally recognized, and in cultures with matrilineal descent is referred to as the avunculate, sometimes called avunculism or avuncularism, a social institution where a special relationship exists between an uncle and his sisters’ children. Several Native American tribes practice a form of this, where the uncle is responsible for teaching the children social values and proper behavior while inheritance and ancestry is reckoned through the mother’s family alone. Modern day influences have somewhat but not completely erased this tradition.
Thinking on this especially today, as I watch my sons interact with their sister’s baby son, my GrandPerson Max <3. Thinking on it too, as it’s the weekend of my lovely daughter’s birthday, and my own brother, Bill, now gone on to the next life, was present and there for her literally from the moment she first drew breath. He remained a constant source of Love and education for all of my kids until he left us. My daughter Lia couldn’t say ‘Uncle Bill’ when she was small; it came out ‘Opie Gill.’ So now her brothers are not just ‘Uncles’ to her son, but ‘Opies.” Important job they have ❤ And I have no doubt they’ll honor it well.
Make art about extended family, about aunts, or uncles, about those elders from whom we learn our culture.
5 March 2017
Spent the day with my sons, two wise and funny young men. The two things that impress me about both of them are: 1) their shared sense of honor, and 2) their shared insatiable curiosity. They are both always–always–learning something new, or seeking to learn something new, or thinking about how they can learn something new.
Make art about learning, about loving to learn, about the magic and mystery of curiosity.
3 March 2017
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.”-Osho
Thirty years ago today, the first of the three greatest miracles of my life occurred: I met my daughter Lia. Now she’s a mama herself ❤ The miracle of Endless Love ❤
Make art about daughters, or about being born.
Light: A Journal of Photography & Poetry
Summer Issue – Solitude
Deadline: March 31, 2017
Give it some thought. Solitude is a common topos of art. Loneliness and estrangement are familiar subjects. Being content by oneself, mindful in the present moment, is another recognizable theme. We welcome works that appeal to recognition of popular contexts, but Light encourages rethinking what’s familiar. Ask yourself, “What makes this different?” Perhaps solitude isn’t simple. Maybe, in some contexts, it is. Send us your finest work that explores the truth and the little white lies we tell ourselves about solitude. Send anything, but guide us to see it anew.
Website: www.light-journal.com
Full Guidelines Here: http://www.light-journal.com/submit
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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