Beginnings — April Mandalas

       

 

April draws to a close in a few hours. Though it snowed last Saturday, the light of April’s last day is clear and blue. The front yard is bursting with new life:  erratic shoots of thick, green grass, day lilies skyrocketing out of tender wet ground, red-stemmed dogwood buds, one purple bloom in the [...]

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PRACTICE – Pink Frog Moon — 15min

I was torn. Pink Moon, Frog Moon, Moon of the Greening Grass. I liked Flower Moon and Broken Snowshoe Moon. I imagined fumbling out of a leather strap on an antique snowshoe, ice jamming the buckle, stepping out just long enough to sink knee-deep into what’s left of Winter. But it is the Frog Moon [...]

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Goodbye, Big Bear, Little Sky

In Bloom, wisteria blooming in the mid-April spring before
the hard freeze, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

My Uncle Bear died yesterday. I was at my daughter’s horse show when I got the call from Mom. Dad was crying too much to tell me himself.
I wonder what it’s like to lose a younger sibling. [...]

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WRITING TOPIC - BIRTH ORDER

                          
                                                      

Birth order. Does it matter?

That was the headline, more or less, of a CNN article that came out last fall, which said that birth order may, in fact, matter a lot. That same month TIME ran its own take on recent hard evidence demonstrating “The Power of Birth Order.”

For example, firstborns are more likely to go [...]

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The 1970’s — What Was America Reading?

          
Minerva, 1889 - 1890, Roman goddess of poetry, music, wisdom, and warriors (Greek, Athena), bronze sculpture by Norwegian American artist, Jakob H. F. Fjelde, downtown Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
 
 
The first black hole was discovered in the same decade that Star Wars was released (and not by Columbo, [...]

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A Girl With A Curl & Her Pug, In Spring

Sony Pepperoni, pen and ink on graph paper, doodle © 2008
by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

 
Em, my youngest daughter, has been reading and writing poetry all this month with her third-grade class. She wrote two limericks and one haiku, and she carried in her Poetry Book a poem called “My hobby” by Shel Silverstein. She read all [...]

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PRACTICE: The 7 Deadly Sins - 15min

All day long I put off writing about sin. I wonder, would I think more about sin if I were sinning? I’m not kidding. I believe that if I were plotting to murder, sin and sin’s consequences would be on my mind.
I wonder if murderers really do confess to priests. And if they do, if [...]

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PRACTICE – The 7 Deadly Sins – 10min

Of the 7 Deadly Sins, I find Lust and Wrath to be the most harmful to humanity. That may say more about me, than it does humanity. Lust to excess leads to unseemly, crass actions. I am stunned by news programs where a bait is placed on the Internet and some guy shows up at [...]

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Ode To A Pink Shoe

Pink Shoe, pen and ink and marker paint on graph paper,
doodle © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

 
It’s not the first pink shoe I’ve loved.
The first would be a pair I bought for $3 at a garage sale. Nineteen-forties, pointy toe, with a bow. Still in the original shoe box.

“Love” is too strong of a word. That’s [...]

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Pablo Neruda’s Love Of Things

Oda a las cosas
by Pablo Neruda

Amo las cosas loca,
locamente.
Me gustan las tenazas,
las tijeras,
adoro las tazas,
las argollas,
las soperas,
sin hablar, por supuesto,
del sombrero.
Amo todas las cosas,
no sólo
las supremas,
sino
las
infinita-
mente
chicas,
el dedal,
las espuelas,
los platos,
los floreros.

Ay, alma mía,
hermoso
es el planeta,
lleno
de pipas
por la mano
conducidas
en el humo,
de llaves,
de saleros,
en fin,
todo
lo que se hizo
por la mano del hombre, toda cosa:
las curvas del zapato,
el tejido,
el [...]

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Three Teenage Girls: 1956

American Life in Poetry: Column 160
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

I’ve mentioned how important close observation is in composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet, Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with suggestion. The poem closes with the [...]

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Celebrate Poetry (Let Me Count The Ways)

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight…” Lines made famous by poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861).
It’s National Poetry Month. We’re celebrating poetry this week on red Ravine. Are you carrying your pocket poetry? [...]

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morada haiku

Morada Walk, Taos Mountain in the background, white
cross Georgia O’Keeffe painted, Taos, New Mexico,
January 2003, Tri-X black & white film print, photo ©
2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

gusty April winds
ruffle brambled shoots of green
Spring bounds from behind

anniversaries
separate fiction from fact
squeeze light from the dark

photosynthesis
through veins of a single leaf
gives life to the world

-posted on red Ravine, [...]

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WRITING TOPIC - THE 7 DEADLY SINS

7, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Can you list the 7 Deadly Sins? I usually get to number 6 and fade out. I can never remember all 7. The 7 Deadly Sins began with Evagrius Ponticus as a list of 8 capital vices. A condensed version of the list [...]

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Sunday

Industrial Strength Clean, pen and ink on graph paper,
doodle © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

I went to a laundromat today
14 quarters per load
white towel with colors
it was my only white

Like the mom
and the boy
who likes to put the quarters
into the machine

They’re the only
whites in the place
Two women speaking
Spanish
sound like they’re
cussing out
the spin cycle

A black [...]

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Got Poetry? (National Poem In Your Pocket Day)

Pocket Poetry, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

April 17th is the first national Poem In Your Pocket Day. It’s part of the wider celebration of National Poetry Month. I went to my monthly poetry group last Friday. We talked about the life of Maya Angelou, read her poetry, sat [...]

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keep clear haiku

In The Red, original floor sign, Casket Arts Building, Minneapolis,
Minnesota, April 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights
reserved.

keep clear, walk the red
rectangular mandala
standing dead center

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, April 12th, 2008
-related to post, haiku (one-a-day) 

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PRACTICE: Growing Older - 20min

I look in the mirror before I start writing but I can’t hold my own gaze. My nose is red from crying, eyes small. My skin is blotchy, and I am critical of my hair. It seems to get pulled straight by its own weight. I want my curls back.
Dad tells me this morning that [...]

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PRACTICE - Growing Older - 20min

I’m looking at my ruddy face in a small, round, silver mirror. I look older than I remember. Thick eyebrows, salt and pepper hair; it looks the grayest to me right after a haircut. There is something about the way it lays across the black plastic smock, and falls in shredded pieces on to the [...]

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ink, paper, wood haiku

Rubber Stamp, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 100-year-old maple floors of the Casket Arts Building, April 3rd, 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

ink covers rubber
thunder blizzard covers spring
paper covers wood

 
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, April 10th, 2008
-related to posts:  haiku (one-a-day), WRITING TOPIC - TOOLS OF THE TRADE, ybonesy’s PRACTICE: Tools Of The Trade - [...]

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An Evening With Elizabeth Gilbert & Anne Lamott

By Carolyn Flynn

For red Ravine

SAGE Editor, author and redRavine.com contributor Carolyn Flynn recently attended “An Evening with Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamott” on the UCLA campus.

 
To loosen up before writing a new book, Elizabeth Gilbert invites one person to join her and live inside her head. She says she wrote Eat Pray Love as a [...]

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streaked window haiku

 
Streaked Window, today’s view, photo © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
 
 
 
there’s a tree outside
it has tiny yellow blossoms
glowing in the dark
 
 
 
-related to post: haiku (one-a-day)
 

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A Year Of Living Dangerously

One Year Today, celebrating the one-year anniversary of red Ravine, pen and ink on graph paper, doodle © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
 

QuoinMonkey: I can’t believe it’s been a year since we launched red Ravine!

ybonesy: Me neither. It’s felt more like ten. (laughs) Just kidding. But I am amazed at how much energy it [...]

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The Art Of Ice (Art Shanty Projects)

The Face Of Winter, Medicine Lake, Minnesota, February 2008, photo
© 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

When photographer Peter Haakon Thompson came up with the Art Shanty Projects in 2003, he never meant for it to become a huge event. The original plan was to take a break from work, build his own ice shack, and [...]

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To Everyone, With Love

Heart to Hands, Natalie Goldberg at Bookworks in Albuquerque, photo © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved. (QuoinMonkey started the Writers’ Hands series; this photo is in that fashion yet not of the series. Deep bow to QM for the inspiration.)
 
 
It’s been almost a month since I went to Bookworks on Rio Grande Boulevard in Albuquerque’s Rio Grande valley [...]

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40 Years

Shadow Of A Bridge (The Journey), looking out from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, outside of Taos, New Mexico, January 2003, C-41 color film photo © 2003-2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

 I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak [...]

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WRITING TOPIC - GROWING OLDER

Sarah (Book of Genesis), gouache on wooden board retablo,
painting © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

You can’t stop it. The tick-tock of the clock.
Once I heard someone say that time doesn’t pass (as if we’re standing still and time flows on by); instead, we pass through time.
Perhaps you don’t want to stop the passage of time. [...]

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mountain haiku

descending, Taos Mountain in winter, Taos, New Mexico, C-41 color film print, January 2003, photo © 2003-2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Taos Mountain sunset
holds a fading memory
yellow snaps of sage

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
-related to post: haiku (one-a-day)

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PRACTICE – Tools Of The Trade – 20min

Van Morrison is on in the background singing, They Sold Me Out. Later…Jools Holland. The sky is lit up at 7:51. A few months ago, dark by 4pm. I’m thinking about Mrs. Blume, my 4th grade teacher. She said her son, Jules had a crush on me. Why? Because my hair looked like Patty Duke. [...]

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PRACTICE: Tools of the Trade - 20min

I always wanted to work with my hands. Maybe that’s why I buy so many art supplies. I have a Pentel paint set I once bought in the Tokyo airport. The paints are like pastel sticks that you use to draw on paper. Also in the set are brushes on the ends of plastic tubes. You put [...]

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