tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21247858057801017282024-02-19T18:21:54.907-08:00Summer Art SeriesJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-22194899486799570862008-07-24T14:16:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:32.843-08:00Day Twenty Five<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6rsLe-2qf033PbCQa4TWlaRc_w954H1uyMJzs7cLBCGYO1_DD91PM8TKDFYhlXfm2zkt8ssP8LvVrM3kcGB7TlENUceGUyKMkYcj46i0COwVz23CZ3Ywpj7tUJd9sdHU2KFqWtZQkWPUo/s1600-h/this,+my+favorite+memory_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6rsLe-2qf033PbCQa4TWlaRc_w954H1uyMJzs7cLBCGYO1_DD91PM8TKDFYhlXfm2zkt8ssP8LvVrM3kcGB7TlENUceGUyKMkYcj46i0COwVz23CZ3Ywpj7tUJd9sdHU2KFqWtZQkWPUo/s320/this,+my+favorite+memory_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226692732122355474" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: This, my favorite memory.<br /><br />Ah, what a fine poem to end on. Yes, folks. This is the last of my daily series. I'm wrapping this project up and working on a larger installation, taking what I've learned with these small pieces and putting it into a bigger context. I'll be posting pictures as I progress on the installation. It should only be another week or so before I complete it. I'll give you one hint: the installation is for the poem, Elegy (see <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-fourteen.html">Day Fourteen</a>).<br /><br />This poem, First Winter with You, speaks to the new vocabulary I had to learn when I moved to the east and experienced Winter for the first time. I became fascinated with how the natural world changes. It seemed (and still does seem) so full of mysteries. Ice, in particular, caught my attention. How it changes from day to day, how you can never really trust it (but people do!), how you can make a foot print in soft ice and come back the next day to see your footprint filled with water that has frozen over, like a mold.<br /><br />Jim, who has grown up with very cold winters, laughs and laughs at me when I make these kind of discoveries. Endearing moments, those ones.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">First Winter with You</span><br /><br />I walk out onto<br />what should be water<br />and wonder why<br />I do not fall through.<br /><br />I wave at you.<br /><br />This, my favorite memory.<br />Not falling through.<br /><br />I press the heel of my boot<br />down, dare a crack.<br />Come through, water.<br />Come.<br /><br />You take my hand<br />and lead me away.<br /><br />I do not fall through.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-41177083860985772832008-07-24T14:12:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:32.952-08:00Day Twenty Four<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQAPhXNUdIstxwuUv0Vqn8Y-A63VgUfh84s7q_IQx_FszxZjtcw-EuqbEh4D3jjLan4x7c0O7Nd1gv3x81RFd-6YlhOLmFE_gN8ttfOhdZOvMFaOPqj4D0GD7s9OLutNP20QxNr1eWX8k/s1600-h/and+what+happens+when+the+bird_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlQAPhXNUdIstxwuUv0Vqn8Y-A63VgUfh84s7q_IQx_FszxZjtcw-EuqbEh4D3jjLan4x7c0O7Nd1gv3x81RFd-6YlhOLmFE_gN8ttfOhdZOvMFaOPqj4D0GD7s9OLutNP20QxNr1eWX8k/s320/and+what+happens+when+the+bird_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226691698458428594" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: and what happens when the bird flies in?<br /><br />Check out <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-eleven.html">Day Eleven</a> for the background story on this poem.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Greatest Fear</span><br /><br />And what happens when the bird flies in?<br />I would like to imagine you will<br />turn a new shade of flustered, more<br />awkward and lovely, all girl, all<br />fluttering over a small winged thing.<br /><br />I get that it’s not just a bird.<br />I get that the universal symbol for fear<br />is a sparrow.<br />I get your defiance.<br /><br />If only your hands did not resemble<br />wings. Your heart, that feathered vessel<br />shaped for flight. If only.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-77266509579544920512008-07-24T14:03:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:33.055-08:00Day Twenty Three<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ1GL8CJUgqPerJ6zz3D-UOJa24wJLzpoRUg5VG2cxLa-UVcuIvwYiai7WZPBILhHTsYwXinjUx7SMpbvmgjuLzBSX50Bg6FpjY0fBZXq63QBFLvCZ3GCWaPI1AUWuyJPvNTwba3WSHy7s/s1600-h/love,+we+have+made+good+time_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ1GL8CJUgqPerJ6zz3D-UOJa24wJLzpoRUg5VG2cxLa-UVcuIvwYiai7WZPBILhHTsYwXinjUx7SMpbvmgjuLzBSX50Bg6FpjY0fBZXq63QBFLvCZ3GCWaPI1AUWuyJPvNTwba3WSHy7s/s320/love,+we+have+made+good+time_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226689391574643842" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: love, we have made good time even in bad weather<br /><br />Sometime last year at work, one of our engineers said something in passing about a steady state angle. I had never heard this term before, and I asked him what it meant. His explanation was that it was the angle a certain substance always made in a pile. For example, sand. When you make a pile of sand, the angle it makes in relationship to the ground is always the same. For you science buffs out there, wind and weather will alter the steady state angle. And different types of sand have different steady state angles. I know. But for arguments sake, I was interested in the idea of the steady state angle as metaphor for bodies coming together.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Steady State Angle</span><br /><br />love,<br />we have been bodies<br />inside bodies<br />on a highway headed south<br />with no space, no<br />outside between us.<br />I miss that.<br /><br />they say<br />sand always piles up<br />at an angle of twenty-seven degrees<br /><br />love,<br />we have made love<br />with our two bodies<br />in a snow-covered cornfield<br />near 200th Ave.<br />I miss this.<br /><br />it is called a steady state angle<br /><br />love,<br />we have been<br />coming to our senses<br />catching our breath.<br />I miss you.<br /><br />it doesn’t matter how much sand there is<br /><br />love,<br />we have made<br />good time even in<br />bad weather,<br />we have been lost<br />but still made it,<br />love,<br />we are here<br /><br />the angle is always twenty seven degrees.<br /><br />love,<br />we are here.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-26425008066970216162008-07-24T13:54:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:33.173-08:00Day Twenty Two<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bzb9dbvGnICGtDuLWaCL2w692O7sH0tw4vQqdvkOVc3uOnT8nidgCpZ8LXzfCNrRRtszVLb5RESuts5P35b6bOiZ9pNBzlIQ89GiCqz6dutObilkidT4i_2u04Sw1mM4TgTpSfKUzhBs/s1600-h/i+try+for+years_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bzb9dbvGnICGtDuLWaCL2w692O7sH0tw4vQqdvkOVc3uOnT8nidgCpZ8LXzfCNrRRtszVLb5RESuts5P35b6bOiZ9pNBzlIQ89GiCqz6dutObilkidT4i_2u04Sw1mM4TgTpSfKUzhBs/s320/i+try+for+years_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226686875561492050" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: i try for years<br /><br />This poem goes with the dream series I blogged about on <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/07/day-twenty.html">Day Twenty</a>. It was a real dream, as dark and real as anything. What I remember most about the dream was my inability to speak to him, to say anything meaningful. I suppose real life with him was like that, too. It wasn't so much a speechlessness as a mind-tripping kind of self-censorship. I always felt like nothing I had to say was smart enough or witty enough or whatever enough. I could not compete with him.<br /><br />It's been years, and every time I see him it's the same. I fall silent and flat.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dream of my complicit silence</span><br /><br />He’s sitting there<br />in the middle of the pub,<br />the empty Irish pub, picking<br />at a Spanish guitar.<br /><br />Once, he told me his father<br />was an alcoholic, is an alcoholic,<br />he told my hair, which was<br />bunched in his hands and dying.<br />He told me in the dark.<br /> <br />The guitar is not important.<br /><br />He’s alone and I’m<br />alone in the pub and I try<br />to say something. I try for<br />years while dust collects<br />on the windowsill.<br /><br />I follow him<br />when he leaves.<br /><br />What’s important is the flask<br />in his left pocket.<br /><br />I don’t know how to tell him<br />to stop.<br /></div>Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-72888337656946504472008-07-24T13:45:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:33.498-08:00Day Twenty One<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkItWqfPGoLLgykzLzG02izIX6MquUw4wWEUbRsnJkIGQzZ04P5l0i9zfTGymQ9JgvAQPpoSFaavomTGL22CCpnyd9S_Ci0DFzSXpuHR21VuL3z4I8rFQ5Z8jMYg4Q0tgIVzVPd0PTxZ_/s1600-h/the+sleeping+world+glitters_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkItWqfPGoLLgykzLzG02izIX6MquUw4wWEUbRsnJkIGQzZ04P5l0i9zfTGymQ9JgvAQPpoSFaavomTGL22CCpnyd9S_Ci0DFzSXpuHR21VuL3z4I8rFQ5Z8jMYg4Q0tgIVzVPd0PTxZ_/s320/the+sleeping+world+glitters_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226684661795922866" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: the sleeping world glitters<br /><br />Well, this poem got kicked out of my thesis in the final run-through. Again, it didn't thematically fit. Boo.<br /><br />I wasn't thinking about the poem this line came from when I put this piece together. In fact, when I went to post this blog, I had to do a search through all my poems because I couldn't even remember which poem it went to. I had forgotten that the poem had to do with birds. Specifically, a small moment when I looked out my window at work and saw a flock of pigeons flying away. It was winter, it was cold. But those birds took little pieces of the sun in their wings and dazzled me.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">the ones that stay</span><br /><br />this flock they<br />flutter the December daylight<br />wings across a low-lying sun<br />thousands of them<br /><br />flutter and flicker<br />the sleeping world glitters<br /><br />I blink<br />and they are goneJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-73338555827234165772008-07-16T12:51:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:33.680-08:00Day Twenty<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVyFfyfe8QAfz8FZZYnMM7KJqRYneUjziFXV3M5sA_ZrPahHVZ876-5TgQwYSUqVWksHM6Fj9VArycpbElCyuK8LMOmjKQMRfO_3gepCkaADUVd3pZIJzKB91v0f5NoBiRsAzlDHLd6eaC/s1600-h/i+wanted+to+stop+dreaming+about+him_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVyFfyfe8QAfz8FZZYnMM7KJqRYneUjziFXV3M5sA_ZrPahHVZ876-5TgQwYSUqVWksHM6Fj9VArycpbElCyuK8LMOmjKQMRfO_3gepCkaADUVd3pZIJzKB91v0f5NoBiRsAzlDHLd6eaC/s320/i+wanted+to+stop+dreaming+about+him_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223702013038632194" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: i wanted to stop dreaming about him<br /><br />A new direction, maybe. Just playing around.<br /><br />This line comes from a sequence of dream poems I wrote this last spring. I often dream in cycles, with the same cast of characters showing up again and again. The dreams come in two or threes or fours. And they are never light dreams, never the kind that float away with the alarm.<br /><br />For a long time, I used to dream about this boy that I loved. Even after we'd stopped talking. Even after years and years of silence. He'd just show up for a week or two in my dreams, and then he'd disappear.<br /><br />This poem is not quite a dream, though it goes with the dream sequence. It is about that boy. About a letter of apology he wrote to me at the end of our tragedy.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dream I haven’t had yet</span><br /><br />There is a letter<br />six pages long,<br />at the bottom of the Pacific.<br />At the bottom of the cliffs.<br /><br />I believe<br />he meant for me to keep it.<br />It was an apology.<br />It was so many years.<br />It was all green and blue.<br /><br />I didn’t want it.<br /><br />I wanted to stop dreaming about him.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-67126166078043897042008-07-15T13:06:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:33.831-08:00Day Nineteen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDROIFp8IDFqG7X5yyplPWGAdUSO6dcxjWYFhwBi188tP5MInkzQagIWzrPm2z8LeR07OQ4jCNOFEoxzVTyGchJJRe2nGv413-CuLhyTk7P1tRg07pJrJXN5R5Sl-tw-WVKPMCg7TiWkmH/s1600-h/the+way+a+woman+sings_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDROIFp8IDFqG7X5yyplPWGAdUSO6dcxjWYFhwBi188tP5MInkzQagIWzrPm2z8LeR07OQ4jCNOFEoxzVTyGchJJRe2nGv413-CuLhyTk7P1tRg07pJrJXN5R5Sl-tw-WVKPMCg7TiWkmH/s320/the+way+a+woman+sings_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223334952608607938" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: the way a woman sings when there is nothing left<br /><br />I wrote a lot about rivers when I lived in Pittsburgh. They have a way of seeping into the darkest corners of your consciousness and leaving secret things there. Driving over the Rankin Bridge one night, I saw a tug boat pushing barges of coal down the river. It was a common enough site, tugs pushing barges up and down the river. But somehow, the silence of those barges and the reflection of the bridge's lights on the water and the warm autumn air of that night got stuck in me.<br /><br />Earlier in the year, I had done some volunteer work cleaning up the banks of the river around the North Shore area. In between picking up empty beer cans and soda bottles, I'd find the oddest things - a child's snow boot, shoe strings, tennis balls, a used tampon applicator, tires. Those things stuck in me too.<br /><br />When I sat down to write this poem, those pieces of the river appeared. Almost out of nowhere, it seemed. I didn't remember that I remembered them. They were just there. Silent as those barges of coal going up and down the river at night.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">the moment the door clicks shut</span><br /><br />is a river,<br />the lowest point,<br /><br />is singing, heavy at night,<br />coal barges and tugs,<br />singing the way a woman sings when<br />there is nothing left<br />aside from the empty house,<br />the leftover whiskey,<br />the smell of sweat still on the sheets<br /><br />is the years of things<br />you wished you’d never said<br /><br />is the generations of junked metal<br />on the bottom of the river,<br />the flat tires and forgotten snow boots,<br />the accumulation of things no one wants<br /><br />is a memory,<br />a drowned photograph,<br />a flood<br /><br />is the sound of the tug<br />which is no sound at allJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-58345225766421879012008-07-15T12:53:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:33.953-08:00Day Eighteen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1qzJKFtY3TDsnFDKIwWhdjlszV_KKJe3zbAhd9XIwRFqDz2i5G4PIGCsd4KcnANtJzRi0nXG3M4ax6Kc5IqzjtjaK0SMm_equzZzEHT07Ank39FLrH9j2YV_RqRqaKykYlFB0YjN6MJoM/s1600-h/Listen_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1qzJKFtY3TDsnFDKIwWhdjlszV_KKJe3zbAhd9XIwRFqDz2i5G4PIGCsd4KcnANtJzRi0nXG3M4ax6Kc5IqzjtjaK0SMm_equzZzEHT07Ank39FLrH9j2YV_RqRqaKykYlFB0YjN6MJoM/s320/Listen_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223331486439141762" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: Listen,<br /><br />Last semester, we were reading Lucille Clifton's collecton of poems, Quilting. She had all these great poems dedicated to friends of hers, poems that were so full of her strong, sermon-like voice. I decided I wanted to write a poem like that, too.<br /><br />Finding a topic I felt strongly enough about was a challenge. But, after listening to a friend of mine go on about finally deciding to marry a guy she'd been dating for five years, I knew I had found my topic.<br /><br />Marriage. For women, it seems to be the moment when we decide whether we're going to honor ourselves as who we are or spend a lifetime in servitude to someone who doesn't quite get us.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Marriage, for my friend, Kate</span><br /><br />listen,<br />we are closing in<br />on that moment,<br />the one all women<br />are told to wait for<br /><br />and we are down<br />to the choosing<br />between the kind of death<br />that means we reincarnate<br />and the kind of death<br />that means we get stuck<br />in purgatory moaning<br />over our old selves<br /><br />and I tell you,<br />we are perfectly capable<br />of choosing all kinds of deaths<br />but<br /><br />no one’s going to<br />walk that far down<br />the brimstone just to<br />pull out your remainsJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-56051889467663831452008-07-15T12:50:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.090-08:00Day Seventeen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlg4R949MesPeHAl__4xHuZsgirv3wYHM8PAo1DogAeAqSK_OG5b4AuHfzDzlpYToEkzuuy3rbqVQ0kLsQ7M4L0Cb3YDo-l4x4DBN-qIM2LJSIu-kY075-WyWdhrHLv5TJFmT8sGSdcXL1/s1600-h/we+pray+for+the+snow_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlg4R949MesPeHAl__4xHuZsgirv3wYHM8PAo1DogAeAqSK_OG5b4AuHfzDzlpYToEkzuuy3rbqVQ0kLsQ7M4L0Cb3YDo-l4x4DBN-qIM2LJSIu-kY075-WyWdhrHLv5TJFmT8sGSdcXL1/s320/we+pray+for+the+snow_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223330616245577122" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: we pray for the snow, for it to stop or keep falling<br /><br />Just read and look. These, hopefully, need no explanation.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Re: Virginia Tech</span><br /><br />We breathe in gray<br />this morning, this nation<br />awash with grief or<br />shock or knowing nods.<br />No one understands<br />the cold or the snow<br />that is still falling.<br />Mid-April isn’t safe<br />these days, the experts<br />argue over why.<br /><br />Thirty-three dead,<br />I’m bundled up tight.<br />Tulips full of snow.<br /><br />We rush to explain,<br />we've seen this before.<br />The snow is still falling.<br /><br />Thirty-three,<br />I’m counting on my fingers.<br /><br />We pray for the bodies<br />being covered with white,<br />we pray for the snow,<br />for it to stop or to keep falling.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-33377341253821561192008-07-15T12:28:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.230-08:00Day Sixteen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifaTBz5CzS3aNMlCAgZsT0sVCtdCN50_ZIy4r1rt0nDEQzvntMnL6qYIF-HuzX8ZjhG4fIH1fCo0hEB47-65c8pcaZRxTLm_iQuEL1pvx-_ucujg2fTdhyphenhyphenfeTK3xMZdsra6cz1a4Hi405E/s1600-h/the+pull+of+you+is+deep_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifaTBz5CzS3aNMlCAgZsT0sVCtdCN50_ZIy4r1rt0nDEQzvntMnL6qYIF-HuzX8ZjhG4fIH1fCo0hEB47-65c8pcaZRxTLm_iQuEL1pvx-_ucujg2fTdhyphenhyphenfeTK3xMZdsra6cz1a4Hi405E/s320/the+pull+of+you+is+deep_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223325151036463922" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: the pull of you is deep, stronger than the tides<br /><br />It's been a few days since I posted. Between camera issues and just some general frustration with art, with life, with the cosmos, things haven't made it to the blog.<br /><br />But, here I am.<br /><br />This piece was a sore spot for a few days. It's gone through about three incarnations. The first was too simple. The second was too flat, not enough contrast. That was all in one day. When the thought crossed my mind to burn the piece, I knew it was time to leave it alone for awhile. I did, and when I came back, I still didn't like it but I was able to see a new direction, some small fixes, that might rescue the piece from total suckyness.<br /><br />So it is what it is. Not my favorite. Which is a bit unfortunate, since I like the poem it goes with so much.<br /><br />I suppose everything can't be a smashing success.<br /><br />Lesson learned.<br /><br />The poem comes from the series I wrote while in Costa Rica last year. We had the good fortune of being able to see giant Leatherback sea turtles nesting on a beach in the middle of the night, and I was taken by the way these turtles return, year after year, to the same beach they were born on to lay their eggs. Scientists can only speculate how the turtles are able to find the exact beach; they think it might have to do with the earth's magnets, or with the way the stars sit over that particular beach, or with the taste of the beach's minerals in the sand. In any case, it's amazing stuff.<br /><br />Thinking about the turtles, I wondered if that kind of return might somehow apply to humans as well.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Return</span><br /><br />In the dark, by the stars<br />I navigate my way back to you.<br /><br />I have seen a hundred oceans,<br />all blue and full of things<br />I had no names for.<br /><br />But you have been calling,<br />sad like a gray whale’s song.<br /><br />Tonight, I remember how<br />the Southern Cross sits<br />just above your horizon<br />and slightly to the left.<br /><br />The pull of you is deep,<br />stronger than the tides.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-23434423936396471402008-07-13T15:34:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.410-08:00Day Fifteen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFaVBkXs0g_OJH5iPXOIXgXefcNglcHbyhof0hNLICz3iwKP83crUtzzCzBuade_wR71H-_kuMvXyWF9ggrpUU6eHh8K6JqQLU04PGXHpFAfIFKCQes6_5pWhBJKVnZn5pffVDbdlje5K/s1600-h/gave+my+sadness+to+the+river_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwFaVBkXs0g_OJH5iPXOIXgXefcNglcHbyhof0hNLICz3iwKP83crUtzzCzBuade_wR71H-_kuMvXyWF9ggrpUU6eHh8K6JqQLU04PGXHpFAfIFKCQes6_5pWhBJKVnZn5pffVDbdlje5K/s320/gave+my+sadness+to+the+river_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222630901140473218" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: gave my sadness to the river<br /><br />I used to work in a building that was right on the Allegheny River. I would park each morning in a parking lot down the block from where I worked and walk the river path to the building. I loved seeing the river each day. I learned that I could tell what kind of day it would be by how the river was running. Some days it would be smooth and glassy. That day would be easy, flowing. Some days it would be rough and choppy, running too fast or too high. Those would be the tougher days to get through.<br /><br />There was one morning, shortly after I'd moved to Pittsburgh, when I went into work early just so I could sit by the river a little extra. The night before had been a sad night, one of grief and trying to let go of things I had no business holding on to. The river, that morning, offered me a place to put my grief.<br /><br />In that moment, this poem was born.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6 a.m., North Shore</span><br /><br />gave my sadness<br />to the river this morning<br /><br />before all the traffic began<br />before all the people went<br />walking with their dogs<br />before the sun was<br />high enough to be bright,<br /><br />sat at the edge<br />of something bigger than<br />this sorrow and watched<br />the way the water carried<br />tiny sticks and tree trunks, too,<br />somewhere,<br />maybe away<br />from where they were rooted<br /><br />before the city began<br />on its hushed trajectory,<br />opened my hands<br />and poured what I had<br />into the passing current<br /><br />poured out<br />blood red heart stuff -<br />bitter endings<br />a freshly dead wish<br /><br />poured the most<br />beautifully bruised<br />shade of grief<br />my small hands could hold<br /><br />poured every last bit<br />into the big, slow waters<br />and begged the river,<br />the color of decayed leaves<br />and damp forest floor,<br />to carry these things, too,<br />somewhere<br />maybe away<br />from where I am rooted.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-10283458765607736622008-07-09T13:38:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.600-08:00Day Fourteen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXaBD-OKdLoVwlVVHc_EnRYTKJ4cIZDxSQBLOxXzCJzOxV9TBdaHa1aQymIEnCjSsHBPdayuJOn7uDHBMLOJQ8pGiTJcuHxVh2zmFnDiOkqx-96M8Ln9GrOBnY7ZbM4hQvQosLs_m6kQ6/s1600-h/because+no+matter+how+thin+the+river+gets_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXaBD-OKdLoVwlVVHc_EnRYTKJ4cIZDxSQBLOxXzCJzOxV9TBdaHa1aQymIEnCjSsHBPdayuJOn7uDHBMLOJQ8pGiTJcuHxVh2zmFnDiOkqx-96M8Ln9GrOBnY7ZbM4hQvQosLs_m6kQ6/s320/because+no+matter+how+thin+the+river+gets_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221116546646977986" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: because no matter how thin the river gets<br /><br />In that same Latin American Literature class I blogged about on <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/06/title-uselessness-few-semesters-ago-i.html">Day Three</a>, we read one of the most beautiful short stories I've come across. The Third Bank of the River, by João Guimarães Rosa. Seriously. I've read a lot of short stories. This one blows the others away. Because you're going to go out, find an anthology, and read the story, I'm not going to give too much away. What you need to know is that there is a father and a son. Father rows out on the river one day and doesn't return. But, he doesn't disappear, either. He just stays out on the river for years and years and years, while son stands on the riverbank, calling to him.<br /><br />For this poem, I took on the voice of the son.<br /><br />I'm sad to say this poem got cut from my thesis (*sniff, sniff*). It's one of my favorites, but it didn't fit thematically with the collection. I've had to cut some of my best poems for that very reason. Damn themes. Someday, they'll see the light of day again...<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Elegy</span><br /><br />because your row boat is singular<br />because I am your son<br />because your hand on my head is a blessing<br />because you row and row and row<br />because your hand on my head is goodbye<br />because I am waving to you as you<br />float farther, farther into the river<br /><br />because you have not come back<br />because you have not gone far<br />because the rains will come soon<br />and the river will flood<br />because your old, brown hat<br />because I have only sad things to say<br /><br />because you are not a ghost<br />because sometimes I see you<br />as a speck on the river’s longitude<br />because I worry you will drown out there<br />because it has been years<br /><br />because you must need new oars by now<br />because no one worries for you anymore<br />because you are old<br />because you are still rowing<br /><br />because this year there is drought<br />because no matter how thin the river gets<br />you will always be buoyed to another shore<br /><br />because I will always be standing here<br />calling for you<br /><br />because I am the third bank of this riverJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-40326600484030161452008-07-08T08:33:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.699-08:00Day Thirteen<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizqllIrkBR_wolnIRqsNlKP3Shd3fyq7KGy8cmmMzDjBQRqyUcaGZ9HxHxFaovEpaXo8RbbjaRHoxalnPUQMb9aiOEkSW-nkPB-_w1MKLw0xcPPJjt2azH8SH1j6yWt5_NJFp8ELYj4JoJ/s1600-h/the+possible+side+effect+of+desire_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizqllIrkBR_wolnIRqsNlKP3Shd3fyq7KGy8cmmMzDjBQRqyUcaGZ9HxHxFaovEpaXo8RbbjaRHoxalnPUQMb9aiOEkSW-nkPB-_w1MKLw0xcPPJjt2azH8SH1j6yWt5_NJFp8ELYj4JoJ/s320/the+possible+side+effect+of+desire_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220666862676167362" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: the possible side effect of desire<br /><br />This may be one of my favorite pieces yet. I started this one at home, of all places. Jim has decided that he is now a painter, too (he says poetry was <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> last year), and he cleared the Cadillac out of the garage and made himself a nice little painting studio. Since then, he's always asking me to come hang out with him while he paints. My standard response is - hang out and do what? Just hang out, he says.<br /><br />But I'm not very good at just hanging out, and I usually wander off into some other part of the house where my hands don't sit idle. This makes Jim sad, I realized after we'd had that same conversation several days in a row.<br /><br />Well last week, he asked me to come hang out with him while he painted. This time I said yes, thinking I'd just sit and keep him company.<br /><br />So I sat.<br /><br />Thumb twiddle. Legs crossed, re-cross. Twiddle. Twiddle.<br /><br />No, I'm not so good at sitting still.<br /><br />Eventually, I grabbed a canvas and started painting with him. He's been into using tempera paint, so it was fun to experiment with the new media. It's been a long, long while since I used tempera. Much thinner and more easily blend-able than the acrylics I've been working with.<br /><br />We also had a broken mirror lying around the garage because I seem to have a thing recently for breaking everything glass in our house. So I picked up some shards and started gluing them onto the canvas.<br /><br />Then this morning, I finally took the canvas into the studio and found a poem line to fit the piece. It was a little tricky. The piece itself has a lot of violence in it, and I wanted to find a line that also had that violence but also had some other dimension.<br /><br />The line that I settled on comes from <span style="font-style: italic;">To Make a Woman Come</span>, a poem that I had published this spring in <a href="http://www.asu.edu/piper/publications/haydensferryreview/issue42/content.html">Hayden's Ferry Review</a> (woo hoo!). In it, I wanted to explore those moments of sex where our bodies seem to want to be pulled apart. Where pain is a pleasurable sensation. Where something in us is asking to be split completely open.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">To Make a Woman Come</span><br /><br />Dislocate the legs from the hips<br />and push back gently but firmly.<br /><br />Delicately remove the fingers, the arms,<br />one sad joint at a time.<br />This is the unraveling<br />of the stomach’s sinewy strands.<br /><br />Peel away the right breast,<br />then the left, being careful to<br />sing or hum as you go.<br />The smell of discovery<br />should come fresh and sudden,<br />like the first cut of an onion.<br />The stinging that follows<br />is inevitable, is the<br />possible side effect of desire.<br /><br />Press back the head,<br />the flushed face,<br />the blue eyes.<br />Press decisively, with determination,<br />until the skin glows golden<br />and the flesh comes softly<br />off the core of its own accord.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-58750982608122511622008-07-07T11:53:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.800-08:00Day Twelve<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8IkeqryLEOqDbe6g5EBpwa2pNtV9Us6_TZjsZ5WqpX3oWaoLf54EFxtLwS8EV980MxOBkqU4y4eEuIc60Vg1oawUXBRtHR06lS9pOMInau0WaOL6Zp3kd_IskPPdd7UEOojBIboCfaIq/s1600-h/and+i+will+show+you+the+beauty+of+drowning_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip8IkeqryLEOqDbe6g5EBpwa2pNtV9Us6_TZjsZ5WqpX3oWaoLf54EFxtLwS8EV980MxOBkqU4y4eEuIc60Vg1oawUXBRtHR06lS9pOMInau0WaOL6Zp3kd_IskPPdd7UEOojBIboCfaIq/s320/and+i+will+show+you+the+beauty+of+drowning_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220349014705540674" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: and I will show you the beauty of drowning<br /><br />Sometimes, I love the darkness I walk in. Sometimes too much. I am slippery, uneven. I sink, and I love the sinking. The way the surface looks from below. I become transfixed.<br /><br />Years ago, my brother was on a ship off the coast of Africa when he told me the story of the Cape of Good Hope. It is almost the southernmost tip of Africa, the place where the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans meet. The current there are wild. Wild in a way that breaks boats. He said the troughs between waves become unusually wide so that when boats sail through, their hulls often split because long lengths of the boat go unsupported with the wide troughs.<br /><br />I thought about that Cape and about my own seas. About the graveyard of ships below my surface.<br /><br />I wanted to look poetically at that capacity that I have, especially in relationships, to sink ships, and to marvel at the view from the bottom of the sea.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">for the light of the surface</span><br /><br /> tell me you won’t mind<br />carrying this weight with me<br /> a boat full of sand<br />carrying the weight of me<br /><br /> the ocean has its own density<br />and I have mine<br /> and some boats never make it<br />around the Cape of Good Hope<br /><br /> they will not float where the currents<br />of the Indian and the Atlantic oceans meet<br /> it has to do with wave lengths<br />and boat lengths<br /> troughs and peaks<br /><br />and boats are heavy things<br /> even without sand in them<br /><br /> tell me you won’t mind<br />the fickle currents<br /> or a ship-wrecked kind of sinking<br />from time to time<br /><br /> and I will show you<br />the beauty of drowning<br /> and rising again for the<br />light of the surface<br /> and not for the airJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-61723855469948880262008-07-05T18:25:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:34.979-08:00Day Eleven<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyMYsuXCC1NXpNiadlpYXprES7B3UgcCwlQufnfrLfQKiFNTcdoCqLsKQVbIaVuRIVusND0H6iS5-rsTdJg0YEWLYpozjXBV-YVGF-O-H6cdiH5rzqf3T2AImJqRXw8qxA0gVpwMFdv7a/s1600-h/if+only+your+hands_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuyMYsuXCC1NXpNiadlpYXprES7B3UgcCwlQufnfrLfQKiFNTcdoCqLsKQVbIaVuRIVusND0H6iS5-rsTdJg0YEWLYpozjXBV-YVGF-O-H6cdiH5rzqf3T2AImJqRXw8qxA0gVpwMFdv7a/s320/if+only+your+hands_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219706932901256338" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2qwv8FxiTmt5Erw09leVyvM6G9kKjDBz0BuVNhWIfHK2DiU0ctGdifs3EsWQjkOJze3h3yX5as09fVv4l-rWlJyCKCnxjpsbmF_wN3jZhLWh-7ECYv73MXE1HM0K81KqtLYNRt3ZSp8Zz/s1600-h/if+only+your+handspt2_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2qwv8FxiTmt5Erw09leVyvM6G9kKjDBz0BuVNhWIfHK2DiU0ctGdifs3EsWQjkOJze3h3yX5as09fVv4l-rWlJyCKCnxjpsbmF_wN3jZhLWh-7ECYv73MXE1HM0K81KqtLYNRt3ZSp8Zz/s320/if+only+your+handspt2_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219706788921082770" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: if only your hands did not resemble wings<br /><br />Was playing with taping off sections of canvas and came up with this. The verdict is still out. Comments?<br /><br />The poem is a strange one. It comes from some experimentation last semester after reading the likes of Dean Young and Maxine Kumin. We were working on the love poem in its platonic form - love poems for friends, animals, places. If you think writing a non-love love poem sounds easy, try it.<br /><br />Well, at the start of class one day around this time of writing the non-love love poems, a moth flew into the classroom and our professor mistook it for a bird and started freaking out. Picture a tall, boyish woman in her thirties, tough, stringy, fierce. Doesn't take anything lying down. Now picture her freaking out over a small pair of wings. No one understood. Finally, she explained that she has fear of birds and that the previous semester, a bird had flown into the classroom and gotten stuck fluttering around the light fixtures. To keep herself from completely losing it, she said, she promptly moved everyone into another room.<br /><br />What I remember, that day the moth flew into our class, was her saying: you just wait to see what happens to me when the bird flies in.<br /><br />And I wondered - so, what <span style="font-style: italic;">does</span> happen?<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Greatest Fear</span><br /><br />And what happens when the bird flies in?<br />I would like to imagine you will<br />turn a new shade of flustered, more<br />awkward and lovely, all girl, all<br />fluttering over a small winged thing.<br /><br />I get that it’s not just a bird.<br />I get that the universal symbol for fear<br />is a sparrow.<br />I get your defiance.<br /><br />If only your hands did not resemble<br />wings. Your heart, that feathered vessel<br />shaped for flight. If only.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-38963820637735809972008-07-01T20:12:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.163-08:00Day Ten<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQC2nLJrW8S7FCbvl8yZK_4IweqM-YjGSD8otNy8xfLK4sLlIkFanN5dimdepvLCI3QhAXP8pJx05EhX3nZcFzLD5YWFMNo5M6LzXEMfAq8YqGpvAjSzqI_zF7poX5cPNOeIHXyNmdM1A/s1600-h/in+an+effort+to+love+you+more_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEQC2nLJrW8S7FCbvl8yZK_4IweqM-YjGSD8otNy8xfLK4sLlIkFanN5dimdepvLCI3QhAXP8pJx05EhX3nZcFzLD5YWFMNo5M6LzXEMfAq8YqGpvAjSzqI_zF7poX5cPNOeIHXyNmdM1A/s320/in+an+effort+to+love+you+more_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218249406672600962" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: in an effort to love you more, I remove my skin<br /><br />This line comes from one of my favorite poems, written for one of my dearest friends. She was going through a gut-wrenching kind of heartbreak with someone she loved, an ending that just wouldn't heal over. It's been awhile since I've been in that kind of space, but being with her as she went through it brought me back to those dark places of my own that I know by heart. Places that bleed you out, run your blood the wrong ways.<br /><br />**<br /><br />The painting took me a bit by surprise. I had set out to make really bold, white, plain text to contrast with the mish mash of handwriting in the background. But, I used a water soluble pen for the handwritten stuff, and when I laid the white paint on top of it, the black started bleeding through. I started freaking out and going back over the letters, adding more white paint to cover up the black. It didn't do much good.<br /><br />Then I stopped and thought about the poem this line is from.<br /><br />And I got it.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bruises</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> - for B.C.</span><br /><br />1.<br />And what of the soft tissue?<br />The memory of your hands<br />lies lodged there like<br /> a stone or<br /> a star, a black density<br />invisible now except for the disappearance<br />of all things familiar and good.<br /><br /><br />2.<br />In an effort to love you more,<br />I remove my skin.<br />Veins, blue and tender, appear<br />like grief or like<br />letters never sent<br />and I know this will never heal,<br />the capillaries will never mend,<br />the blood will always be pooled there<br /> just like that,<br />a watercolor stain.<br /><br /> <br />3. <br />And if the hemoglobin<br />forgets how to turn?<br />Yes, I suppose you are<br />already too far<br />from the bed that<br />still smells like you,<br />too far to return,<br />too far to stop the bruises<br />from bleeding out.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-87716893841066491242008-07-01T19:56:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.318-08:00Day Nine<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqPkp9ZUhU5owuF5ZwroyNYhtcUKkLwZnlz2YOUY9DnCMgqwD5ihsU4VL7h4erIuDBUn5PuCZ6FA36FJBr5G90Y5kUq_QXbqhmIr6gWSSxUr72uzyACEAb6TjqMBpWPSWYzxy1j2cFtWp-/s1600-h/i+am+sure+of+the+lie_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqPkp9ZUhU5owuF5ZwroyNYhtcUKkLwZnlz2YOUY9DnCMgqwD5ihsU4VL7h4erIuDBUn5PuCZ6FA36FJBr5G90Y5kUq_QXbqhmIr6gWSSxUr72uzyACEAb6TjqMBpWPSWYzxy1j2cFtWp-/s320/i+am+sure+of+the+lie_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218245499763056146" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: i am sure of the lie<br /><br />Ah, the poem bowl picks <span style="font-style: italic;">At Last, Ursula Buendia Weeps for Her Husband</span> again.<br /><br />Actually, I chose this one. My process has changed a bit from how I started. I began with doing one painting at a time - doing the background, waiting for it to dry, then laying down the text and other bits and bobs. Well, turns out I get a little antsy waiting for paint to dry. So I started doing more backgrounds at a time.<br /><br />I still start by drawing a line out of the magic poem bowl and doing the first canvas in direct response to the line. But then I take the colors that are left on my palette, and I keep painting until I don't feel like painting no mo'. Lately, I've ended up with 5 or 6 backgrounds in one sitting. The first one already has its poem line, but the others, I have to find lines that will fit the painting. It ends up working well both ways.<br /><br />It seems the stranger (and often better) juxtapositions of art and text come when I have to choose the poem line after the painting has been done. Perhaps because I've had a little distance from the painting and the initial head rush of color?<br /><br />See <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/06/day-four-part-two.html">Day Four</a> or <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/06/title-uselessness-few-semesters-ago-i.html">Day Three</a> for the full text of the poem. I've got it about memorized by now, I think. You should too.<br /><br />xo<br />~JJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-25910341958336554952008-06-27T19:50:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.425-08:00Day Eight<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUG2YIKEhcooN0HFeBzazUmwE3g8a4Cuorz8KfV1hCQCVqQfbaO4Kg2QlKQwTtC238pjiMSqr52GxWr6kc6cBrmiuaBDd5CD7_5-EVXcoLCTDDcZGuBKR-miOE8fCK0OrCKfi566-lDavM/s1600-h/if+i+keep+driving_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUG2YIKEhcooN0HFeBzazUmwE3g8a4Cuorz8KfV1hCQCVqQfbaO4Kg2QlKQwTtC238pjiMSqr52GxWr6kc6cBrmiuaBDd5CD7_5-EVXcoLCTDDcZGuBKR-miOE8fCK0OrCKfi566-lDavM/s320/if+i+keep+driving_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216759442254351666" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: if i keep driving<br /><br />This piece comes from a poem I wrote about leaving a man I almost married years ago. We'd bought a house together, I had the diamond ring, we were on <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> track.<br /><br />Mid-stride, I realized it was all wrong. And I left. Not in a mean way. He was a lovely person, a great friend. Just not the person I needed to be marrying. So, I packed up everything that would fit in my car, left what didn't, and started a cross country drive towards Pittsburgh (well, almost cross country).<br /><br />The poem, <span style="font-style: italic;">If I keep driving</span>, looks at those very last moments of leaving. Pulling out of the garage. Waving goodbye. Seeing the house in the rearview mirror. Seeing him standing in front of the house in the rearview mirror, waving.<br /><br />It was the strangest sadness.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">If I keep driving</span><br /><br />our house will grow small<br />and eventually be gone.<br /><br />If it suddenly begins to rain,<br />the distance between you<br />and your reflection in the<br />rearview mirror will seem shorter.<br /><br />If I keep driving,<br />you will walk back<br />through the front door<br />after some time, a long time,<br />your arms folded over your chest,<br />and eventually you will be gone, too.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-67284343184141802482008-06-26T13:04:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.545-08:00Day Seven<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nstpVE49Gg4GS6B8M93H-pZP7WjtbWBROCil2xt6MQ2RJQbd_W2nRPCSSB3Gatq41lcbYytAW68LNiq0JytplqjIaOWQC9oRNA28M8shil_PMsaghHkhoulAls3-bowZFG_hoSippQPz/s1600-h/add+in+here+some+phrase+about+solitude_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-nstpVE49Gg4GS6B8M93H-pZP7WjtbWBROCil2xt6MQ2RJQbd_W2nRPCSSB3Gatq41lcbYytAW68LNiq0JytplqjIaOWQC9oRNA28M8shil_PMsaghHkhoulAls3-bowZFG_hoSippQPz/s320/add+in+here+some+phrase+about+solitude_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216284300499414834" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: add in here some phrase about solitude<br /><br />Different direction with this one. The line comes from the poem <span style="font-style: italic;">At Last, Ursula Buendia Weeps for Her Husband. </span>I won't post the poem again because I've posted it twice already (see <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/06/day-four-part-two.html">Day Four - Part Two</a> and <a href="http://jenmcclung.blogspot.com/2008/06/title-uselessness-few-semesters-ago-i.html">Day Three</a>). The magic poem bowl seems to keep spitting out lines from this poem. Who am I to complain?<br /><br />What I was trying to get at with this line, though, is the fact that Marquez, in <span style="font-style: italic;">100 Years of Solitude</span>, never actually mentions the word solitude. Or loneliness. Or alone. Or any other word you might associate with solitude. He never spells any of those things out in the book.<br />The characters just become those things with their lives. It's quite a masterful move, from a writing standpoint. One of my favorites.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-15404969186320061692008-06-26T11:58:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.733-08:00The studioThere's nothing like waiting for paint to dry. Really. It's like the quiet time in between dreams. Because my pieces are so layered, I've been spending a lot of time lately waiting for paint to dry. You should try it sometime.<br /><br />Today, the painting mess I made was exceptionally beautiful, so I thought I'd take some pics and post them for you while I'm waiting.<br /><br />Actually, I'm just avoiding finishing my thesis introduction. Taking pictures is funner. Yes, funner.<br /><br />xo,<br />~Jen<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NwmGDA7BOL3c6PBKXQR8Mj99j6IT6SVl4XHnqOxIp_ZNlJrVUszBzGf9z7FS_Z6P7kt8Ttq_RkrTS1qoobn4zM_cQ5FpgerA27OQG6WHxtACIq933eLtt234st22zpaE1DVUa2tQWwhf/s1600-h/studioshot2_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8NwmGDA7BOL3c6PBKXQR8Mj99j6IT6SVl4XHnqOxIp_ZNlJrVUszBzGf9z7FS_Z6P7kt8Ttq_RkrTS1qoobn4zM_cQ5FpgerA27OQG6WHxtACIq933eLtt234st22zpaE1DVUa2tQWwhf/s320/studioshot2_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216267796942335874" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhHjq5_Gh2Urlktio_p08g7VZTAoa2XhXlgGsmsPJGerrxPjXFlMH_nzFBB4GaAuCELIJldxfLpI04vtAaVwRKk7nBK59KessfjWhx061fv3ivThmoh77FLcUTIBBbj3eHQYF5po5HQnI/s1600-h/studioshot1_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhHjq5_Gh2Urlktio_p08g7VZTAoa2XhXlgGsmsPJGerrxPjXFlMH_nzFBB4GaAuCELIJldxfLpI04vtAaVwRKk7nBK59KessfjWhx061fv3ivThmoh77FLcUTIBBbj3eHQYF5po5HQnI/s320/studioshot1_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216267506358897090" border="0" /></a>Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-77062459085932436172008-06-25T09:00:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.855-08:00Day Six<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikRmUWEuZSxdPnsel5dS8C-rDHZYn5XZ7ZD1shd-sWoNDDaEeN_uoy5RQhxC_GaRWs2PutJEGf9Ps44D4X5ZOc12o7xU8QY9uForr2Ygbf5uPO0ciPfHUpYiXnP4RxekyzSJq3gAHiGVXR/s1600-h/don't+let+me+leave_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikRmUWEuZSxdPnsel5dS8C-rDHZYn5XZ7ZD1shd-sWoNDDaEeN_uoy5RQhxC_GaRWs2PutJEGf9Ps44D4X5ZOc12o7xU8QY9uForr2Ygbf5uPO0ciPfHUpYiXnP4RxekyzSJq3gAHiGVXR/s320/don't+let+me+leave_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215849732596874178" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: don't let me leave<br /><br />Early last winter, Jim and I took a trip up to the twin cities for a poetry reading he was doing at the Soap Factory. I was in a terrible mood, I don't remember why now, and I just couldn't shake off the intensity of the mood.<br /><br />Some days are like that. Inexplicably sad. And when I'm having one of those days, I have trouble saying what I need to say. I speak in code, give only very subtle hints that anything is wrong, and I withdraw from the world.<br /><br />After the mood had passed, I thought I'd sit down and write a little code-breaker, a kind of map, for Jim. <span style="font-style: italic;">Translation</span> is that map (at least part of it).<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Translation</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> - for the guy with good intentions</span><br /><br />When I say<br />I’m going for a walk<br />and it happens to be dark<br />and the night happens to be cold<br />and we happen to be in St. Paul<br />in the shittiest part down by the Soap Factory<br /> what I mean is<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> don’t let me leave</span><br /><br />When I say<br />do you like my dress<br />the linen summer one<br />that settles just so around my hips<br />the one you asked me to wear<br />all last July<br /> what I mean is<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> tell me I am beautiful</span><br /><br />When I say<br />I’m tired<br />and I cry without cause<br />and recede like seawater into silence<br />when I weep for the dead and the undead<br />when I puddle and twist<br />and otherwise make a heap<br />of a body on the floor<br /> what I mean is<br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">pick me up</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> untangle the knots </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> put me to bed</span><br /><br />When I say<br />tell me you love me<br />and then I am silent<br /> what I mean is<br /> tell me –<br /> <span style="font-style: italic;"> with your hands on my face</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> with your breath, with your eyes</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> as close as you can get</span><br /> – tell me you love meJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-40235880359136404352008-06-25T08:32:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:35.911-08:00Day Five<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYmZ4cp8o0In4ZvEQEQble3WTSZyL-XMVLXF-maD2peOe_Uf-nifYT6WcQQNBHLBdHN_bkSgkwQDnfx_Y0RKGh8RcJNw5PnrpOZRIzHy5h2FAVSt0Hi_Zn7AKcVFCa9ceLp8UUe6XkvnM5/s1600-h/you+will+break+over+this+soon_resized.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYmZ4cp8o0In4ZvEQEQble3WTSZyL-XMVLXF-maD2peOe_Uf-nifYT6WcQQNBHLBdHN_bkSgkwQDnfx_Y0RKGh8RcJNw5PnrpOZRIzHy5h2FAVSt0Hi_Zn7AKcVFCa9ceLp8UUe6XkvnM5/s320/you+will+break+over+this+soon_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215842738822932674" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Title: you will break over this soon<br /><br />About a year or so year ago, my friend Paul wrote a blog about his mother's failing health. It was one of those rare and beautiful moments of openness when grief trumps loneliness and a hand is reached out.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">fold & break</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-for Paul</span><br /><br />your mother in a nursing home<br />your mother wiped blank, clean<br />your mother broken<br /><br />will is<br />a strange blue flower<br />folding delicate<br />folding in on itself<br />in the end<br />the will is being drawn<br /><br />you will break<br />over this soon,<br />fold and<br />breakJen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-13809192386881754602008-06-23T14:35:00.001-07:002008-12-09T02:27:36.104-08:00Day Four - Part Two<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPkNq0s1mh2HuW1yZXBgsP_GKlXG4HoRp8XJevQ5j2qkO6Zv7nGDjxQW4jtgymf-yw-2gX5rUyDRNfi5HyE2mkeF78Zau0jO381Vc8Gl3PW5zOORhBkbPaAuEQaBv0im73t3eTC5byryj/s1600-h/four+years,+eleven+months,+and+two+days+is+a+shipwreck_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYPkNq0s1mh2HuW1yZXBgsP_GKlXG4HoRp8XJevQ5j2qkO6Zv7nGDjxQW4jtgymf-yw-2gX5rUyDRNfi5HyE2mkeF78Zau0jO381Vc8Gl3PW5zOORhBkbPaAuEQaBv0im73t3eTC5byryj/s320/four+years,+eleven+months,+and+two+days+is+a+shipwreck_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215193826759026546" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: 4 years, 11 months, and 2 days of rain is a shipwreck<br /><br />This line comes from the poem I posted a few days ago, At Last, Ursula Buendia Weeps for Her Husband. I'll post the poem again below, but if you want the story on the poem, go to Day Three.<br /><br />The line, in particular, comes from the end part of the book. After Ursula's husband dies and her sons have all left or died, the town falls into a long, long period of ruin. It rains for 4 years, 11 months, and 2 days without stopping. Everything in the town (Macondo), even the cars, begins to grow mold.<br /><br />***<br /><br />At Last, Ursula Buendia Weeps for Her Husband<br /><br />1.<br />Peel back the first layer and<br />the second, flowering, the third<br />comes off bloody, the fourth<br />bone and bruised blood vessels,<br />no swelling, no tell-tale sign.<br /><br />They say you have died, but<br />there you are, under the chestnut tree,<br />just as I left you, just as<br />the forever falling rain of<br />last year, just as my eyes red<br />and dry from cutting onions for<br />your supper, just the quiet, the<br />clay horizon, just the wind,<br />maybe your ghost, passing through.<br /><br /><br />2.<br />Just a moment ago you were<br />here, we were here, circle of hands.<br />Four years, eleven months, and two days of rain<br />is a ship wreck. I question the moment<br />the sun appears. I am sure of the lie.<br /><br /><br />3.<br />The trees weep without magic<br />when the cold does not come. Come<br />back, I cannot stand the silence and<br />more than that the nothingness, the<br />uselessness, my arms my body folding<br />at night into the shape of you, gone.<br />Come touch finger the raw place<br />I’ve collapsed into, bone over<br />bone over bruise over skin over night over<br />quiet.<br /><br /><br />4.<br />Add in here some phrase about<br />solitude - fall comes in one breath,<br />the leaves can’t even remember<br />what they’re supposed to do. Change<br />the mistake I made for some Mums, wait<br />and wait for the shipwreck to come,<br />hold out for rescue – sinking feeling.<br /><br /><br />5.<br />When the chestnut tree finally dies –<br />burnt gold, the alchemy of love –<br />you will return and I will<br />weep a river to carry us both<br />home.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-72039417855895751152008-06-23T14:13:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:36.213-08:00Day Four - Part OneTwo pieces for today, with very little in common...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7mFdC1m1JShHZLb54O6oZjb6Xh7bPjMBcqerMgpqEiT-qkeIT217OKc2fikF5pLCXwS221DfGHrbnDef40jgNDpgpFlevFqs5TfvZsfi9hNfGpZFxgSmMV_gH9hLLrjTOaQbh0wvqqId/s1600-h/the+tree+we+have+been+turning+beneath_resized.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7mFdC1m1JShHZLb54O6oZjb6Xh7bPjMBcqerMgpqEiT-qkeIT217OKc2fikF5pLCXwS221DfGHrbnDef40jgNDpgpFlevFqs5TfvZsfi9hNfGpZFxgSmMV_gH9hLLrjTOaQbh0wvqqId/s320/the+tree+we+have+been+turning+beneath_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215190227578681106" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Title: the tree we have been turning beneath<br /><br />This line comes from my poem, Second Burial, which draws on the old burial traditions of the native peoples from Costa Rica. Their practice was to dowse the body in mangrove pulp and juice to quicken the decay process, bury the body once, wait until only the bones were left, dig up the bones and arrange them into a small stack before burying them in the ground a second and last time.<br /><br />After my travels to Costa Rica and after I'd had a chance to think more on this curious process, it occurred to me that second burials are often what we do with people we love, living or dead. The grief of letting someone go comes in stages.<br /><br />For me, I wanted to use the metaphor to speak about a particular relationship that I seemed to keep digging up and burying again and again.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Second Burial</span><br /><br />Under the mangrove tree,<br />I find a place and bury you.<br /><br />In a dream, roots wrap<br />around you, which is us,<br />which is me, which is you.<br /><br />And when the juice of the mangrove<br />and the mash of the pulp<br />have pulled the soft tissue away,<br />I will go to the tree<br />we have been turning beneath,<br /><br />unearth the remains,<br />unbury you, which is us,<br />which is me, which is you,<br /><br />I will gather the bones we have left,<br />and tie them tenderly<br />into the shape of a gift,<br /><br />give them back to the black soil<br />and watch as this last offering of us<br />is again returned to the thousand pieces<br />from which we came.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2124785805780101728.post-59159580050517499352008-06-20T11:31:00.000-07:002008-12-09T02:27:36.353-08:00Day Three<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlMp1SgCpJYEnPEGGEX-W_HdtRejRtoQl6CeGV0BWr6KRwz2Ny1kykHHqd1SaGAGfulCRwkwNdz1RjY097AWfYWdnLrsag9xW7O39NDMht0j9dC_negZES526T3nW12KOn6R2GkuTd0CZ/s1600-h/the+uselessness_resized.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlMp1SgCpJYEnPEGGEX-W_HdtRejRtoQl6CeGV0BWr6KRwz2Ny1kykHHqd1SaGAGfulCRwkwNdz1RjY097AWfYWdnLrsag9xW7O39NDMht0j9dC_negZES526T3nW12KOn6R2GkuTd0CZ/s320/the+uselessness_resized.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214033206670685954" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Title: the uselessness<br /><br />A few semesters ago, I took a course in Latin American Literature. For the first time, there, I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's <span style="font-style: italic;">100 Years of Solitude</span> and fell in love with the book. One of the central characters is Ursula Buendia, the feminine whirlwind that keeps the family together through death after death after death.<br /><br />I wanted to write from her perspective and give her the space to say the things it seemed she might have always wanted to say. Mostly, I thought she needed to grieve openly. And so this poem was born (along with a whole series of poems speaking from various characters' perspectives).<br /><br />***<br /><br />At Last, Ursula Buendia Weeps for Her Husband<br /><br />1.<br />Peel back the first layer and<br />the second, flowering, the third<br />comes off bloody, the fourth<br />bone and bruised blood vessels,<br />no swelling, no tell-tale sign.<br /><br />They say you have died, but<br />there you are, under the chestnut tree,<br />just as I left you, just as<br />the forever falling rain of<br />last year, just as my eyes red<br />and dry from cutting onions for<br />your supper, just the quiet, the<br />clay horizon, just the wind,<br />maybe your ghost, passing through.<br /><br /><br />2.<br />Just a moment ago you were<br />here, we were here, circle of hands.<br />Four years, eleven months, and two days of rain<br />is a ship wreck. I question the moment<br />the sun appears. I am sure of the lie.<br /><br /><br />3.<br />The trees weep without magic<br />when the cold does not come. Come<br />back, I cannot stand the silence and<br />more than that the nothingness, the<br />uselessness, my arms my body folding<br />at night into the shape of you, gone.<br />Come touch finger the raw place<br />I’ve collapsed into, bone over<br />bone over bruise over skin over night over<br />quiet.<br /><br /><br />4.<br />Add in here some phrase about<br />solitude - fall comes in one breath,<br />the leaves can’t even remember<br />what they’re supposed to do. Change<br />the mistake I made for some Mums, wait<br />and wait for the shipwreck to come,<br />hold out for rescue – sinking feeling.<br /><br /><br />5.<br />When the chestnut tree finally dies –<br />burnt gold, the alchemy of love –<br />you will return and I will<br />weep a river to carry us both<br />home.Jen McClunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09127863513421673197noreply@blogger.com0