come to your senses.

Well, I’ve already broken the rules: my round of Reflex should be in the book already, should be ready for mailing tomorrow. I’m still writing, so I probably won’t wrap it up until mid-week.

One of the things I’m enjoying the most about this process so far is how encouraged I feel to write the strangest, un-Rachel-like things. Most of my writing to date has been very narrative, very story-oriented. But I’m suddenly finding my voice driven more by images, by sound, by the possibility of something new opening on the page.

And pictures, too. I am not a photographer, no, not at all. But I like to take pictures. This side of the camera feels safe, feels purposeful. I like the carefulness of taking pictures, how precise one must be in order to capture the right moment, evoke the right feelings. But also how quickly it has to happen. How a good photograph is equal parts skill, vision and luck.

Back to writing.

 

in the mailbox

A package was waiting for me when I got home yesterday.”You got something from California,” Donna said. “Oh, it must be Reflex,” I answered. “But it’s not from San Francisco,” she insisted, forgetting that California is more than our favorite city, and that more people live in it than Jon.

And indeed, it was Reflex.

Looking pretty much exactly the same as the last time I saw it – on the outside, that is. I spent about a half hour leafing through the new entries last night, and I am once again in awe of how fascinating it is to see the creative process of others.

So some ground rules for myself for this round:

1. Sit with it. I’m going to just absorb what’s there, and not write anything, until Sunday.  (This is more necessity than desire, as I have more schoolwork than I care to think about all due on Saturday.)

2. Beginning Sunday, respond to what’s in the book once a day for 7 days. At the end of the 7 days, I’ll put my favorite(s) in as my entry for this round.

That’s it.

 

closing out

Tonight is my last night with Reflex. Tomorrow I’ll be putting the book back in the mail, and I have to say I’m a little sad and surprised at how quickly the week passed. When I first got the book, I had the intention to write something every night for the week. Well, that didn’t work out. But here’s what my Round 2 Reflex contribution includes:

two photographs

a found poem and a drafted poem

That found poem is something I’m still thinking about. It happened like this:
I drafted “What If the Earth Is Leaving the Sky,” my contribution for this round.
I pasted it into Google Translate & translated it to French.
Then I translated the French to Spanish.
Then the Spanish to Albanian.
Then the Albanian to Hebrew. (p.s. the Hebrew was confusing for me because even though I know you read Hebrew right to left I kept trying to highlight from the left to the right when I wanted to copy it, and that didn’t work.)
Then the Hebrew to Spanish.
Then the Spanish back to English.
Then I cut it up in small pieces and rearranged it on the page.

And there you have it.

 

Round 2 – just in

Yesterday in the mail I received Reflex. The book has made a complete circuit through the five of us, and the work so far is exceeding my hopes. A few notes, as I sit here listening to Peter Gabriel’s astounding new album:

Kristin’s entry was wonderfully surprising and creative (not surprising that it was creative; just not what I expected to see). Very cool.

Jon used some sort of paste / Mod Podge . It smells like 4^th grade to me, like walking in to Sister DonnaMarie’s art class. And now I am thinking about Kristi Serafino, my best friend in 4^th grade, and wondering what happened to her.

Tamar’s entry – lovely, lovely. The texture – I just want to keep touching all of it.

Donna’s poem is the latest entry, the one that will now come immediately before my Round 2 entry. It is definitely going to serve as a great source of inspiration.

It’s interesting to see the connections we made. No one piece is a literal interpretation of another, but the threads are there. I can even see the remnants from the original prompt in the newer entries.

This was a good idea.

Some pictures:

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night song: round 1 process notes

Today I finished a very rough draft of the first entry. It’s called “Night Song,” a title that will likely change later.

I’m a little nervous. I haven’t felt this uncertain about a draft in a long time, and I’m sending it to other artists that I respect and admire, as well as some who don’t know me at all. Is this the first impression I want to give? But I’m confident there are at least a few good moments in the poem, and I’m also confident the drafts will get stronger as I go. As for the prompt, here’s what we started with:

Write a poem about what you like about the Devil.
In this poem, you must incorporate one moment of praise.
Important (requirement): No reasonable person, at any point, should be able to interpret this poem as a form of devil-worship.
You are allowed one allusion to the Old Testament, although that is not a requirement.
The poem must be set in modern times.

I took a hugely liberal approach to this: nowhere in the poem do I mention the Devil directly, and I like to think of the entire poem as a praise song.

I elected to include my draft work in the sketchbook as well, so that everyone else can see the evolution of the poem if they’d like to. I’ve no idea what anyone else will do during their time with the book, but I’m excited to find out.

Off to research shipping rates.

 

unwritten

re·flex [n. ree-fleks]
An action that is performed without conscious thought as a response to a stimulus.

I have wanted for some time to collaborate with other artists. I especially love the way musicians jam together, how their eye contact is consistent and profound, how they can signal a change in tempo or key with their eyes or the smallest amount of body language. That doesn’t happen much with poets (though if you’re interested in reading about one way poets can “jam” together, click here), so I wanted to explore other avenues of collaboration. And that’s how Reflex was born.

We’re starting with a prompt from a talented poet and teacher – I’ll spend the next few days formulating a response to the prompt, which will eventually end up in the sketchbook (since I can’t draw or sing or do any other artistic things very well, this will likely take the form of a poem). I’ll send the book along to the next artist, determined very literally by drawing a name from a hat. That artist will respond to something that already exists in the book, and so on.

I have the prompt. I have the book. I have a ridiculous amount of conflicting emotions.

I also have a gigantic case of writer’s block. Lucky for me, it’s not real.