This morning I woke to the forecast snow, but I wasn't prepared for the wind whipping snow in my face. This is still October! Even in the Northeast Kingdom! At least I'm not as shocked as those from Arizona, California, Texas and the Bahamas. I hear there's a stash of wool sweaters in one of the art studios for anyone not from New England.
Just as the snow came at an unexpected time, yesterday an unexpected poem surprised me. I tried a warm-up exercise by recording words that caught my eye as I skimmed over a magazine article - jumble, lion, ritual, silence, novice, usher. I started with notes I made in my sketchbook after trying to draw the William Merritt Chase painting Venice Facade at the Colby College Museum of Art. I wondered what was behind the shuttered triptych windows and who came out on the balcony above them? I imagined an aristocratic woman with mantilla-covered hair.
Those windows and the gleaned words turned into this beginning in the right column:
So much for aristocracy! This exercise jolted my right brain into action. It's a great way to get something onto a blank screen, then move on. Maybe I'll have a real poem, maybe not. But at least I moved words around!
I am amazed that you can create a poem from a few scanned words and a picture.
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