May 2013
23 posts
At the moment, our society’s notion of success is largely composed of two parts:...
– Arianna Huffington
… Around me, ice crust circles
with a gleam and glare
that holds me,...
– From Raveling by Anne Shaw; full poem at VINYL POETRY.
How to fix every Strong Female Character pose in superhero comics: replace the...
– Gingerhaze, via The Hawkeye Initiative
“Created in December of 2012, The Hawkeye Initiative uses Clint Barton as well as other male comic characters to illustrate how contorted and hyper-sexualized women are commonly drawn in comics.”
I’ve never out and out declared how much of...
We know this, somewhere in our hearts, that there is a deep need to create, and...
– Caits Meissner— What Do My Poems Matter, Anyway? Confronting Art’s Place in the Hierarchy of Need.
Amen.
I’m thinking of that moment a young upcoming artist, in a conversation about work, spoke of teaching/facilitating/mentoring from a disdainful stance, as if it weren’t real...
You want to say the bell to a trumpet. A hollow sound. The sound of emptiness becoming
whole. Whole as a loaf of bread, and the hungry sound that echoes.
A sound thin as water? Or deep, deep as the echo of the womb where the one you thought you would raise was gone, unexpectedly
on a night of hard rain, when she knelt in the bathroom, the thumb-sized bloody loss. How...
If I was talking to someone who was young who was just starting out, go to...
– Maggie Dubris
Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to learn from anyone else. Always, the balance between your own vision and the wisdom of others who’ve already trodden similar paths. Consider Bruce Lee’s model: take instruction from masters so you can...
I was looking for Baudelaire’s grave and we met this Frenchman and he said, “Are...
– Maggie Dubris, interviewed by Ali Liebegott for Believer Mag
http://believermag.tumblr.com/post/50096754461/image-by-shary-boyle-interview-with-maggie
This resonates. I was recently asked, by a host just before a gig, if I could have any long-dead poet in the audience, who it would be. Response?...
Tate: Remixed— five years after the fact, I stumble across this. More accurately, I’ve been pointed in this direction— some interesting new work on the horizon for me, and this serves as stimulus. Francesca Beard’s a perennial favourite around these here parts, but I’m particularly digging this work of hers. Nick Makoha and Polar Bear also produced work for the same project. Go...
According to one theory, the moon formed when a Mars-sized chunk of rock collided with Earth. After the moon coalesced out of the debris from that impact, it was much closer to Earth than it is today. This idea is taken to its fanciful limit in Italo Calvino’s story “The Distance of the Moon” (from his collection Cosmicomics, translated by William Weaver). The story, narrated by...
When you recognize that you’ve found yourself in this wilderness (and you will;...
– The Define Journal | What I Have to Say Wednesday: Parker Fitzgerald
1 tag
First thing every morning after waking up, I take a pill that may cause...
– ‘The Shadow of an Airplane Crosses the Empire State Building’ - Howie Good; via Right Hand Pointing
What I fault newspapers for is that day after day they draw our attention to...
– Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (via Caterina.net)
April 2013
24 posts
What’s that sound? It’s the sound of thousands of text-nerds...
– Drafts 3 is a Go
By now, you probably already know how much of my writing gets done via an iPad (read: a lot). In terms of a writing workflow, I’ve been through most of the popular text editors, and while Drafts is a a bit of a “bus stop” app as referred to in the linked article,...
We need to make space for “creative reading” as much as “creative writing” – at...
– Nicholas Royle on “composition and decomposition.” Pair with Francine Prose on how to read like a writer and Virginia Woolf on how to read a book, then follow up with this 1936 to acquiring knowledge, of which critical reading is a centerpiece. (via explore-blog)
1 tag
For a year I went blind as a freight train, thrashed
in a wild grief, because...
– Extract of Small Bang Theory by Anne Shaw | Kenyon Review Online. Follow the link for the full poem.
Think about it this way. We have 7,000 languages. Each of these languages...
– Lera Boroditsky - ENCAPSULATED UNIVERSES | Edge.org (via Roberto Greco)
Creativity comes from listening to the problem actively as you would in any good...
– Kenji Ozdemir - How to Work with Creative People
Great site. Looking forward to future posts. These kinds of initiatives often grow out of commercial concerns— I get the feeling that the eponymous “creative” that the site focuses on is at least 60% designer, perhaps with some...
Bloodaxe’s very own Neil Astley caught me on stage at the Cuirt Festival. I shared a stage with Brian Turner, which was an honour. I’m just going to go ahead and presume that you’re already very familiar with Here, Bullet…
Anthony Joseph. I came up watching this writer. Poet and charismatic front man for the Spasm band, I remember seeing him read from his surrealist text “The African Origins of UFOs” way back in the day (late 90s?) upstairs at the Oval House Theatre. Blew my mind as to the possibilities for poetry and the notions of identity, heritage and sci-fi— all of which were particularly appealing...
Great art would have head— it would have interesting intellectual ideas and...
– Shea Hembrey
To me, it matters a lot how a poem looks on the page. And I’m mostly interested,...
–
Nicole Terez Dutton, interviewed by David Winter for Boxcar Poetry Review
Nicole is one of the most loving presences I’ve ever encountered. And so damn smart about living as a writer, if you couldn’t already tell. (via ibegantoseevoices)
Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No...
– Creative People Say No— Kevin Ashton
If we take from the liberal arts one guideline on how to inhabit an increasingly...
– Digital Humanism, Jessica Collier
We procrastinate because, before we write, it’s all infinite possibility, but...
– Dani Shapiro (via mttbll)
Had the most fantastic day (although I really do overuse that adjective, I’m being very sincere): spent the morning and early afternoon grinding through the inbox and ticking things off the task list, had a late afternoon support meeting with a writer who has some genuinely exciting ideas for a new project she’s working on, and this evening, I’ve just finished with the first...
More and more I feel creativity is a commitment to what you love. When the...
– Toyin Odutola, Creativity Decoded. (via tobia)
1 tag
This. And a poem, performed simultaneously. Speaking to each other. Yes.
I see this as a delicate balance – how to make the work personal in some ways,...
– Sarah Palmer (via photographsonthebrain)
Speak now before it is too late, and then hope to go on speaking until there is...
– Paul Auster, Winter Journal (via elnellis)
I usually take a walk after breakfast, write for three hours, have lunch and...
– Ingmar Bergman (via loveage-moondream)
To be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing it’s best, night and day,...
– e.e. cummings (via thechocolatebrigade)
Love often turns into dust. Memory remains. I like making things that are...
– Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Coco Chanel: The Legend And The Life (via violentwavesofemotion)
apoetreflects:
“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
—Chuck Palahniuk, from Diary (Doubleday, 2003)
March 2013
20 posts
To carry truth is an interesting metaphor. Language is assumed to carry meaning....
– George Szirtes— ‘The Idea of Subject in Poetry’