16 June 2016
“I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind, that sips the scald from the telling…”~Karen Volkman
Make art about the first thing that comes to mind with the phrase I believe….
flowers-1680-1050-wallpaper
15 June 2016
We’ve had a sick kitty cat. Ulli, our twelve-year-old rescue, a tiny delicate graceful gray creature who, because of the trauma she experienced before we got her, even after all these years, still jumps at loud sounds and runs from strangers, who will panic herself into an asthma attack in one minute, then turn and stalk a deer in the next. Ulli is definitely one of those cats who make you feel awed and grateful when she stops for that second to allow you the privilege of petting her, or when she musics the air around you with the low distant train rumble of a contented purr.
My oldest son, a large bearded Viking of a man, is completely devoted to this animal, and as age inevitably creeps into her bones, slowing and thwarting some of the natural processes, he becomes the one anxious, determined to give her the best care and most love he can. We both went to the vet to pick her up from a required hospitalization for twenty-four hours, and he loaded her little bitty crate into the car, saying, “It’s okay, Ulli. You’re all better now. No more tummy trouble. No more doctor. We’re headed back to Mimi’s for a little bit.”
I laughed, at being Mimi to this grand-cat, and in relief that our Ulli is okay, and in gratitude that my own child is so relieved to have his beloved old lady cat back in good health. The blessings of family, y’all. That’s what it is today.
“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
Make art about animal family.
14 June 2016
Five years ago today, my beautiful funny sexy irreverent brilliant soulful husband, John Little Bear Eaton, walked on to the next life.
Whew. So….something new…and a lil weird feeling, but here goes…
Hello beautiful people 🙂 Thank you for helping out! I am a teacher and a writer, a single mom living in central Virginia, putting the last of my three kids through college by myself.
I have been invited to attend a retreat hosted by The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers in upstate New York, taking place August 25-28, 2016.
The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers represent a diverse mixture of women of prayer, Each Grandmother, a leader in her community, has devoted her long life to prayer and action.
You can learn more about the Thirteen Grandmothers here:http://www.grandmotherscouncil.org/
This is a healing retreat, Creation to Completion, completing a full cycle that began at Menla twelve-years ago with the creation of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, where the Grandmothers Council will come together, for one last time, to complete their circle of prayer around the planet.
Prayer as Action, Action as Prayer is the way I try to move through each day, and it would be the dream and honor of a lifetime to have the opportunity to learn from these incredible spiritual leaders.
The funds would cover registration, room and board,and my driving travel to upstate New York. The retreat isn’t until late August but space is limited and so time is a factor.
These women embody what I say each day–Every moment a miracle, every footstep a prayer. And to be able to attend this retreat would absolutely be one of my life’s miracles.
If 160 of my FB friends donated just $10, I could have this trip funded in a few minutes. $10 is such a small amount but it adds up so quickly when many friends and family come together. Thank you so, so much ahead of time for liking and sharing, even if you can’t donate at this time, and for my donors, endless gratitude, the biggest thank you of all! ❤
As an added Thank You, I will send each donor a print of one of the photographs I take while on this journey, with a small prayer I will write just for you. ❤
Check it out here ❤ And thanks for readin, for sharin, for bein who you are.
https://www.gofundme.com/13grandmothersretr
Daily Prompt Catch-Up
6/11/2016
Beautiful day with family today.
From “On Family Regathering Seen One Night Through a Window” by George Moor
All flows; the person has no permanence.
The children will grow up, the parents die.
For each precarious present the past tense
Is waiting; all is sort of a lie.
The clean cut fruit in dingy crystal bowls;
The fading chairs; the family sitting down.
For reassurance meet these traveling souls,
Each with an intimate sadness of his own.
Old habits calm. Old stories of old days….
Make art about family.
6/12/2016
Just don’t have words. Heartbroken.
6/13/2016
My son and I found this tiny nest yesterday, tumbled on the grass beneath the Guardian Oak. No babies, wounded or otherwise, in sight, just this miracle of weaving, bits of bark and straw and leaf and string. Inside the tiniest shards of shell left behind, thin and white as paper. I was struck at how delicate—and how strong—it is, kinda like Love.
Make art about the fragility, about the persistent strength, of Love.
This week, recommending Dawn Lundy Martin‘s Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life, from Nightboat Books. Dawn earned a BA from the University of Connecticut, an MA in creative writing from San Francisco State University, and a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Martin’s first full-length collection, A Gathering of Matter / A Matter of Gathering(University of Georgia Press, 2007), was selected by Carl Phillips for the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Her second collection,Discipline, won the 2009 Nightboat Books Poetry Prize, chosen by Fanny Howe(Nightboat Books, 2011). Her most recent collection is Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life(Nightboat Books, 2014).
In 2004, she co-edited, alongside Vivien Labaton, The Fire This Time: Young Activists and the New Feminism (Anchor Books, 2004), a collection of essays on modern theories of activism in America. She also wrote the Afterword, titled “What, Then, is Freedom,” to Harriet Ann Jacobs’ 19th century slave narrative, Incidents of a Slave Girl (Signet Classics, 2010).
Martin is co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation in New York, a national grant making organization led by young women and transgender youth, which focuses on social justice activism. She is also a member of the Black Took Collective, a group of experimental black poets embracing critical theory about gender, race, and sexuality.
Martin has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, The New School, and Bard College. In June 2013, she was a was a featured writer for Harriet.
Buy Dawn’s Beautiful Books
Life in a Box is a Pretty Life
http://www.nightboat.org/title/life-box-pretty-life
Praise for Life in a Box is a Pretty Life
from Fanzine
“Shades of a Bruise: A Review of Life in a Box is a Pretty Life” by Paul Cunningham
“I think of the contorted poems of Life in a Box is a Pretty Life as themselves boxes. Imprisoned voices. Entering one of these boxes might feel more like something akin to giving one’s self over to crisis. Or chaos. How exactly should one feel about their participation in these boxes? I think it depends on the reader. The reader could possibly feel like they’re looking into a mirror; another might feel like they’re gazing down a corridor of Hell. Again, the reflection/refraction depends on the reader. Perhaps a reader will feel like they’re stepping into familiar territory, or they might feel explicitly uninvited once immersed within these boxes. Or even suddenly, violently deformed by these boxes. Defamiliarized and/or re-shaped by these boxes. Strengthened and/or bolstered by these boxes. One might also not know how to feel. These boxes might induce sweat, nausea, discomfort…”
Read the full review here: http://thefanzine.com/a-review-of-dawn-lundy-martins-life-in-a-box-is-a-pretty-life/
Discipline
http://www.nightboat.org/title/discipline
(Winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize)
Read More from Dawn Lundy Martin Online
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/dawn-lundy-martin#about
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/dawn-lundy-martin
https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/new_american_poets/dawn_lundy_martin/
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/04/29/five-feminist-poems-for-national-poetry-month-5-modern-frame/
http://www.readab.com/dmartin.html
Interviews
http://lithub.com/on-the-black-avant-garde-trigger-warnings-and-life-in-east-hampton/
https://bostonreview.net/poetry/NPM-2016-karen-lepri-interviews-dawn-lundy-martin
https://pen.org/interview/three-questions-dawn-lundy-martin
https://www.loc.gov/poetry/interviews/dawnlundymartin.html
http://blogthisrock.blogspot.com/2016/02/split-this-rock-interview-with-dawn.html
Hear Dawn Lundy Martin Read
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UX66tOxPM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nIpt-B-lA
And So Important Today: Dawn Lundy Martin, Claudia Rankine, and Messiah in Conversation: Readings and Discussion of Justice Poetry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuFE5ybTFhM
Beautiful reading, y’all ❤
xo
Mary
10 June 2016
Make art about ancestors, about what we can do to be good ancestors.
Finally got around to getting this website updated 🙂
Including all those Daily Prompts! Right here!
Check em out and get your creativity flowing!
Mary Carroll-Hackett Daily Prompts!
9 June 2016
Having a bit of an identity crisis 🙂 Maybe not a crisis LOL 😀 but definitely a shift, some kind of transition, reinvention maybe.
“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.”― Jeanette Winterson
Make art about changes in identity, about shifting views of the self.
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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