Poetry Confronting Art

This year during the Christmas season, Justin and I got to worship with our new church family on Christmas Eve.  We got to join my family back in Indiana for Christmas (we made it there at 2:30 in the morning on Christmas since we left after the last Christmas Eve service).  We spent Christmas morning laughing and opening gifts.  We all piled into my dad's truck for our annual trip to my aunt and uncle's house for Christmas dinner.  I talked with my grandfather about my grandmother and how much we miss her.  We honored her with our conversations.  We laughed recalling memories of her.  On Christmas night, we ate snacks and watched movies.  Justin and my brother, Tyler, went hunting together the next day.  We had family game night.  We laughed.  We made memories. 

It was great.

Back in Ohio, I am reminded that God orchestrated our journey here.  I am reminded that God brought my husband here to minister to the kids of St. Paul's and I am so happy.  God has blessed us immensely.  It was a wonderful holiday season.  Happy birthday, Jesus.

Justin got me an amazing stack of books for Christmas and I can't wait to dive in.  First up on my list - Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King.  It's going to be a good one.

Most recently, I had two more journals pick up my poems for publication.  One poem called "The Burial" was picked up for the next edition of Really System.  Another magazine called The Light Ekphrastic ("ekphrastic" refers to a poem written about a work of art) contacted me and asked me to do a collaboration with artist, Brett Busang.  I'm VERY excited about this one and love the mission of this magazine.  Brett selected a poem from the submission I sent in to the magazine (a poem called "Cat People" that I wrote about my best friend) and I selected a painting from his website.  His job is to create a new painting based on my poem and I will be writing a new poem based on his painting.  Both the original poem and painting will appear alongside the new poem and painting in the next issue of the journal.  This is going to be fun.

Really System:
reallysystem.org

The Light Ekphrastic:
thelightekphrastic.com

You can take a look at Brett's art here:
brettbusang.com

I chose the painting Rockpile for the collaboration.

I have done some ekphrastic poetry in the past and am excited to work with Brett and see what perception/interpretation he comes up with for my poem.  In graduate school, I wrote a poem on Remedios Varo's Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst and Salvador Dali's Autumnal Cannibalism.  Check out the paintings if they aren't familiar to you; you won't be disappointed.

In the spirit of ekphrastic poetry, I wanted to share some recent artwork I've been working on.

Have a happy New Year, everyone.  Read some poetry.