Art and Earth

Despite being a scientist, my appetite for the arts is insatiable. This blog promotes the arts in all forms and celebrates earth-based spirituality. A lot of the writing here is new to Tumblr. You'll find lots of literature with illustrations I've carefully chosen. There are also some essays by me, forays into science, spirituality, fine art, and music. If I use your work, I will include a link to your commercial web site if I can find one. NOTE THAT YOU MAY USE THE SEARCH ENGINE ON MY BLOG (BELOW) TO LOCATE ALL PIECES BY A GIVEN AUTHOR OR ARTIST. To Fellow Tumblrites: My posts have been featured in #lit, #prose, #poetry, #illustration, and #art. Also, I TWEET ART & LITERATURE! (@LaCurator)

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Hi Ann: I was just wondering how you are doing. Richard Thuss

Fine thanks, Richard.  Just busy with real life!

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Parchment of low grey clouds

Wind-driven branches etch glyphs

Odes to winter

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Copyright 2014 by THM.

Image: Carol Austin

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What in your life is calling you, when all the noise is silenced, the meetings adjourned, the lists laid aside, and the wild Iris blooms by itself in the dark forest, what still pulls on your soul?

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Poem by Rumi

Image: Dee Carpenter

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Rough wind, that moanest loud Grief too sad for song; wild wind, when sullen cloud knells all the night long; sad storm whose tears are vain, bare woods, whose branches strain, deep caves and dreary main,— Wail, for the world’s wrong!

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Ann says: Happy November!!

A Dirge by Percy Shelley

Image: Marcus Larson

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she had hollow bones that barely held her frail frame i would make whistles out of them  after she was gone just like she wanted

the light in her warm eyes was dimming ever so slowly but still lit my way through the dark guiding me along my own path…that she paved

when time blows between octobers barren branches leading her into winters burgeoning storm and i hear a soft whistle as she disappears

…into the white

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Ann says:  The poet's mention of "hollow bones" suggests a bird. There is a poetic tradition of linking birds (especially swans) to women.  I wonder if he was thinking of whistling swans?

Copyright 2014 by takingstockofwhatmattersmost.net

Image: Paul Bond

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after work

the slender wonder

of an egret

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Copyright 2014 by Kris Lindbeck 

Image: Julia Cameron

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A Thought on Haiku (By A Humble Haiku Master)

I would like briefly to discuss what seems to me a common and easily correctable fault that I often encounter among the many haiku that I read on Twitter, Google+ and here at WordPress. I appreciate the amateur, hobbyist nature of haiku; I am myself an amateur and a hobbyist. However, even amateurs wish to improve their craft, and I believe that addressing this one issue in composition would lead easily to more vivid and specific poems.

holding hands long into the night summer love

autumn begins green and gold leaves on the trees

I would argue that in these haiku, the lines "summer love" and "autumn begins" add nothing to the pictures created by the other lines. They are abstractions for which one can form no mental image. In each case the line tells us what the poem means; "holding hands long into the night" is "summer love"; when there are "green and gold leaves on the trees," then "autumn begins."

When one has only three lines to work with, it seems a shame to waste one of them-- effectively, one third of the poem-- summarizing the other two. To convey the idea of summer love, it would be more vivid and more interesting to select images that connote this idea while creating a mental picture for the reader. For example:

holding hands where the fireflies hang their lanterns

This poem presents a richer, fuller experience than the first while conserving its ideas. Fireflies are traditionally associated with summer, while their lights, like "holding hands" among people, are a form of courtship. Further, to describe the fireflies as "hanging their lanterns" takes us into more interesting territory. This choice of phrase suggests the red lantern of the brothel, or perhaps the paper lanterns of the concubine whom the lord has chosen to visit by night. Summer love is often thought of as a fling; does this choice of language suggest that the relationship is more sexual than romantic? That some form of transaction is taking place?

In any case, I think it's clear that the revision is superior to the original as a poem. It makes better use of the meager resources of haiku. To those who find themselves wanting to include these summary lines in their haiku, I would recommend holding them back. Let the more abstract idea be the unsaid of your poem, the indwelling spirit of which your poem is the incarnation.

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Ann says:  Don't let him fool you-- James has a PhD in English literature and has mastered many writing forms, including the haiku.  He's also a great writing coach who accepts online students.

Copyright 2014 by James Ciriaco.

Image: Leonid Afremov

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One fence post taller— Holds round black moons full of death, Silent wings falling

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Ann says: This is a barn owl, which is found throughout the temperate zones of the world.  Relative to other bird species, barn owls are flourishing, perhaps due to their fondness for nesting in barns and other man-made structures.

Copyright 2014 by Seán Mac Falls aka Ormond

Image: Richard Young

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sad mannequin your breasts are so hard and no nipples

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Copyright 2014 by James Ciriaco

Image: Alex Colville

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Ever, ever Stir and shiver The reeds and rushes By the river: Ever, ever, As if in dream, The lone moon’s silver Sleeks the stream. What old sorrow, What lost love, Moon, reeds, rushes, Dream you of?

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"Ever" by Walter de La Mere 

Image:  Tatiana Iliina 

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white sky the storm is over but wind shakes from the trees cataracts of rain

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Copyright 2014 by James Ciriaco

Image: Christopher Mathie

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“Oh rascal children of Gaza. You who constantly disturbed me with your screams under my window. You who filled every morning with rush and chaos. You who broke my vase and stole the lonely flower on my balcony. Come back, and scream as you want and break all the vases. Steal all the flowers. Come back… Just come back…”

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Ann says: Juma may be referring to the aftermath of the 2008 Gaza War. The conflict destroyed tens of thousands of homes, many hospitals, and nearly all of Gaza's family farms, leaving 50,000 homeless and resulting in acute food shortages. (Wikipedia).

Khaled Juma, Palestinian poet

Image: Ayan Villafuerte

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ARIEL (Poem by Sylvia Plath)

Stasis in darkness. Then the substanceless blue Pour of tor and distances.

God’s lioness, How one we grow, Pivot of heels and knees! — The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to The brown arc Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye Berries cast dark Hooks ——

Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else

Hauls me through air —— Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels.

White Godiva, I unpeel —— Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child’s cry

Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow,

The dew that flies, Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.

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Ann says: Ariel is one of Sylvia Plath’s best-known poems.  In it, a woman rides a horse into a bright light, gradually merging with the beast.  A “tor” is a hill.

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

Image: Alex Colville

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Introducing Mustafa, Ekphrastic* Poet!

If you like my blog, you’ll love his. All the poetry is by Mustafa, and he has a great eye for images.

One Little Star

*** My little girl danced in a grand theatre,

Where the magical music would lift her to fly.

She leapt and gamboled within constellations

Amidst the veils of celestial sky,

And I watched her from the sea of darkness,

Where her brilliance caught the tear in my eye.”

*** ~Mustafa Demiri

Mustafa’s Tumblr

*Ekphrastic poetry: Poetry that visually describes a work of art.

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Corkscrew Angels (Poem by Dan Collins)

Corkscrew angels are surfing the mind Box Elder, Maple, Elm, Cotton Wood, miniature thoughts; mighty forests aligned. Corkscrew angels are surfing the mind, gliding intent, as if they were blind. Budding with promise, imminent good, corkscrew angels are surfing the mind, Box Elder, Maple, Elm, Cotton Wood.

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Ann says: When trees disperse their seeds on the wind, they can float on the breeze or they can flutter to the ground. Maples, box elders, cotton woods and elms all have winged seeds (samara) that flutter to the ground. This makes it more likely that the seed will land in a site suitable for germination that is not directly under its parent.

Copyright 2014 by Dan Collins, aka Atticus.

Images: 1. The Guardian.com  2. Stock

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Desert Plume (Ghost Rider): Free-Write by by Selene Skye

geldings batter themselves against what they lost

my two-step across the sand

only rubs the wound raw

mares look through me

wild eyes rolling

they don’t do well with a see-through girl

stallions understand my pressure

eager to pound my heart

with bone hooves

mounting bareback

my saddle their spine

they give me lead

plumes of white breath

flared nostrils

the sky breaks open

lightening between my breasts

rain

my cloak

screaming across the desert floor

a girl

a horse

an open vein in a canyon

someday this memory will reopen

and I can stop pretending to be a flesh-and-blood woman

nudge the hourglass

sand streaming up my thighs

a stallion

to give lead

to my pressure

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Ann says:  Most of Selene’s poems, including this one, go straight from her head onto paper with no edits. I envy the image stream that wells up from Selene’s subconscious mind, resulting in her unique brand of surrealism.

Copyright 2014 by Selene Skye.

Image: Stock; artist unknown

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Hers is the dance of wood and water, things that endure, things that pass. The river lives  in the flow of her arms, the geography of her hips. The wood echos in the insistent beat of her feet, the steady drumming calling you home to a place  that only women know.

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Flamenco Dancer © The Raven’s Song (aka Jude Dippold), 2014

Image: Frida Kahlo.