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I write. And then I eat. And then maybe I'm happy.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Mega phone 'The Happy Burden' & Seatbelt: visual poem #1 & #2




I have attempted a series of visual poems. At first, my idea was to continue using words in shapes from a poem I wrote roughly 6 years ago called SMOKESTREAM, where the words formed a plume of smoke from the bottom of the page to the top. Late last year an idea hit me -- MEGA PHONE, SEATBELT, BINOCULARS, and a few others. I was gonna publish them as a chapbook. Something simple. But then I came across some artwork which inspired me into a new direction. A young lady by the name of Deanna and visual poems at www.poetryfoundation.org.

Whenever I write poetry, sometimes, the poetic idea may come to me months or years before I actually write it. Its kinda like I'm at the microwave waiting for the machine to beep. I told myself I'd wait until I could get to a computer for more than an hour, and not have it be an internet cafe (they tend to speed up the time, the bastards). Well, I got to a laptop, had it for 24hrs plus... but the poems never came. See, originally I was going to use simple borders to outline the words in the shapes of the objects. So it would be easy to just do it in 10 hours or such and be done. But other poems came. Many others.

These visual poems were always in my head, but off to the side where the stack of covers and pillows are in my room. See, I just think that the poems were waiting for me to be inspired to go in the direction I went (re: the above pictures).

I'm not all the way happy with them. A little tweak here, there. But it was fun. Something I've never done. Including the ghazal I wrote a few weeks ago, I'm on a good run of trying new things creatively.

I slept, I ate, and now I'm happy. No maybe. For now...

Aww shoot, it just wore off.

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