I have been asked by Heather Bentley, to read some new poetry coming up on July 8 at the Royal Room. The evening is called Club Shostakovich, which Trio Pardalote will curate. It is a free evening of chamber music and poetry – sophistication and affordability at their best! Yes. You should come.
I’ve been re-working some older poems this spring and summer, I guess mostly because of limited time. I had been toying with the idea about doing some sort poetry experience, when and opportunity to do something in the field (literally, a field!) came my way. I’ll be sharing “The Salt-Water Erasures” first at Club Shostakovich, and then up at Smoke Farm in Arlington, WA for the Lo-Fi Arts Festival. Yes. You should also make a drive to the farm. It is pretty and large and there are few rules to abide by other than to be a decent human being and enjoy yourself. Pretty much the same as any other day, only at a large remote farm with a few hundred artists, so that’s pretty special.
Here’s a little artist statement of where my head is on this subject these past few weeks:
I have been thinking about water of the body – the human body and the Earth body – and how oceans and humans have salt. The equations of salt in most oceans are about 3%, whereas The Dead Sea is a shocking 33%! The Dead Sea has been noted for its unique saline qualities, dating back to the Ancient Greeks who believed in and had stories of Three Muses (or Fates). Sappho, who was Greek, was the first woman poet that we know of and her poems where originally written on papyrus leaves. Over time, the leaves have decomposed and words are missing from the original poems. All translations of her work that we have today are open for interpretation because of this. Like the ocean, time washes away everything we create, yet some things may remain in fragment. Being a new mother, my creative work time has eroded to small bits during the day here and there, rather than large chunks of time. Conversely, I am interested in the sojourn that the creative process takes when revisiting completed work. I plan to revisit the poems I wrote two years ago, when my daughter was in utero (another body of salt water floating in salt water). I will re-write some of the poems and dub them, The Salt-Water Erasures. Erasures are a method of re-writing poetry by literally erasing some of the original words to create something new, almost fragmentary. Some of the poem will have repetition,which will allow for a certain meditative quality to emerge, the way water lapping continuously has for someone sitting at the beach.
