Sketching the poetry of routine

the studio building

my cozy bedroom looks out onto Clay St.

A semblance of a routine is slowly establishing itself- after a morning in the studio, I've taken to napping during the afternoon and painting late into the night. I stop everything for the meals- fabulous organic fresh meals served at 8am, noon and 6pm. I am pretty restless trying to sleep through the night... not used to the rural sounds, missing my lover, worried about the loud creaking floor boards if I need to creep to the bathroom. I am easily awake by 6am. The songbirds and an occasional gravel-crunching sound of a car passing slowly punctuate my morning prayers/meditations. 

Last night we had a poet reading by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who has written three award winning books of poetry and is a professor in the NY State university system.  Her reading was very theatrical and entertaining. She writes using words as though spotting them on a rambling walk. Her sense of wonder and awe remind me of the poems of Mary Oliver, and her reverence for nature, considering the fragility of the moment, recall the writings of Rachel Carson as well. As the talk ended she spoke briefly about correspondence, the loveliness of snail mail, and her recent collaboration on a chap book, Lace&Pyrite: Letters from two Gardens (by Organic Weapon Arts press), with Ross Gay. I thought of collaborations I have tried long distance with girlfriends and sisters and how they fizzled and ended and I thought about trying it again.

I like the idea of taking a dusty system, like the postal service, and using it as a basic parameter to a time based art project. The pace of packaging, stamping, and mailing correspondence delivers a segment of time that suspends routine and allows space to let the imagination flourish, unlike the immediacy of phone, text, and email.