I am headed out this weekend for a couple days at my sister's, but spent the morning working on the final three pieces of NAPOWRIMO, which I suppose is flouting the poem-a-day rules a little in my favor. But I also didn't want to have to write and post while I was technically on vacation, or as close as I get to a vacation. And I wanted to actually finish since I am so close to the end, so while they were coming, I let them come and prepared reels and blog posts here to go up while I am on the move.
I think I was really feeling that drag of the last third when I am always most likely to throw in the towel, no matter how good the momentum was initially. But I worked through it and lo and behold 30 pieces. 15 of one project (and maybe the whole project) and 15 of another (that I think I'll continue to work on into May.) Switching gears did help a little. I always eye the many poets using prompts for NAPOWRIMO and am always tempted to try them, but I think I am helped by knowing a bit more specifically what I'm working on. Both of these series will eventually likely be zines or chapbooks, and segments of longer collections (two different ones I am thinking at this point that are still in their infancy.)While I initially thought they might fit in the RUINPORN manuscript, the more I wrote them, I thought maybe not.
I may write a few more villains pieces in May, but the brunt of my writing activities will be getting COLLAPSOLOGIES in shape and ready to layout and design. I already have the cover design cobbled together from some paper collages I made a while back (before the poems were even written) but they are a great fit. It's a far more modern feeling book and these collages are still vintage as usual, but also midcentury-esque. Stay tuned for the reveal very soon.
It is again impossible that is May, just as impossible as it was April. The leaves have been filling in on the trees and even the one in the courtyard that blooms late is slowly starting. In the realm of flowerings, I did manage to confirm and set a deposit for my botanical tattoo that will be happening at the end of June so that is firmly on the horizon.
Earlier, going over some final edits on a lesson on the Greeks I was thinking about a word we were discussing whether it worked, the idea of "netting" Zeus's daughters in the story of Pirthous and Theseus, who set out to kidnap an underage Helen and Persephone from Hades. Obviously, it did not work out so well for them. I'd used the word offhandedly in my roughest draft, but it seemed perfect--to catch like fish--more than "kidnap" or "steal" I found myself having a hard time explaining the associativeness of language, however, how that was the exact word to describe it to my editor. Payday deadlines are nigh, which means ideally less time for back and forth, and it's easier just to switch it to other phrasing that was more layman-friendly.
But the question got me thinking about AI and poetry and all the ways that language works with metaphor and the associative brain. How computers will never quite be able to tap into that associative logic or dreams and subconscious things that propel actual poetry. I say the word "doll," for example, and it brings up childhood, motherhood, perfection and gloss. The uncanny or creepiness of still objects. Passiveness, play, inertia. I'm not sure a computer understands that. I say the two heroes were trying to net goddesses (or demi-goddesses anyway) and picture two men holding a net and a girl running into it, captured, which was how things usually worked among the Greeks. The deceit and the sweeping up like a net. I think this needs a longer entry perhaps, but this will do for today.
