Exciting News! The Spring 2024 Vol. 26 Edition 2 of Stirring is now available, and I’m one of two featured artists. The online magazine includes two of my black and white photographs from my Murmurations series. Please check it out, and let me know what you think.
Back to the Mirrorworld
This morning I reconfigured the lights in my mirrorworld with finding the Favoritism in Impartiality and Impartiality in Favoritism in mind, and took some preliminary photographs.
Contradictory Abstract Nouns
I saw no reason to alter the random order of my new Big Five, so I’m starting with Favoritism and Impartiality. Here’s something to think about: favoritism means both the act of favoring one person or group over others with equal claims, and the state of being a favorite. I wouldn’t have thought of that second definition if I hadn’t looked it up. Impartiality is the quality of not being biased or prejudiced.
On my axes of abstractions: fear, bias, and locus of control; I would put favoritism as fight / negative / internal, and impartiality as flight / positive / internal. However, if I’m looking at that second definition of favoritism, being a favorite I would say fight / positive / external.
Starting with Impartiality, I can already see that this is a broad and important topic for study. Impartiality on Wikipedia says it is both a legal and religious concept, and says to also see: Equity, Fairness, Justice, Neutrality, and Objectivity. In an article called “Impartiality in Moral and Political Philosophy” by Charlotte Newey at Oxford Research Encyclopedias it outlines a debate between impartialists and partialists and concludes, “The debate between impartialists and partialists looks set to continue unless progress is made in elucidating a concept of impartiality that can accommodate the concerns of both.”
This already challenges my bias. I instinctually think impartiality is good and favoritism is bad. I’m looking forward to exploring the opposite idea further.
A to Z Road Trip
Continuing my trip today, I stopped at sites that used the A to Z challenge to explore poetry and poetic topics (like me). First I stopped by The Versesmith and learned about Alphabet Haiku invented by Beatrice Evans which is a traditional haiku in which every word starts with the same letter. And Verso-Rhyme invented by L. Ensley Hutton which is an eight line poem with lines of six then four syllables, and an XAXBXAXB rhyme pattern. It’s only punctuation is an exclamation point at the end.
I had a pit stop at Mainely Write where I learned about and read The Progressive Poem 2024. Then I circled back to How would you know . . . and enjoyed some Barley and a Bop and Gasoline and Gold and a Glosa.
Today’s Poem
It Never Gets Old
On this May Monday morn-
ing I rejoice
to dive into a new
study heady
and design a bright world
of mirrored voice
every possible
angle ready!
Portable MFA Week Six: More About Risk
This week’s focus is to review and find what I’m not risking to write.
Reading: This week’s instructions are to read through everything I’ve written in my journal for this course so far, and then reflect on my life. “Take a brief inventory of the essential themes of your life. When you are done, ask yourself what, out of that inventory, you have completely left out of your writing to date.”
While reading and learning about Louise Glück last week, I learned her mentor was Stanley Kunitz, so I decided to study him this week. I picked up The Testing-Tree (assoc link) and Passing Through: The Later Poems New and Selected(assoc link) which won the National Book Award. Only three poems from The Testing-Tree are not included in Passing Through. I was curious as to why these these three, so I read the Notes at the back, and found one was a translation, one was based on a translation, and the third didn’t have a note and I like it. It’s really short, so I’m going to share it here:
Again! Again!
Love knocked again at my door:
I tossed her a bucket of bones.
From each bone springs a soldier
who shoots me as a stranger.
The poem I chose to study this week is in both collections and is called “The Mulch.”
To begin learning about and from Stanley Kunitz I found a lecture “From feathers to iron” from the Library of Congress and this video:
Writing: Though the only writing instructions for this week are prompts to “help steer you toward greater depth in your poetry,” I believe the writing assignment is to write a poem that takes a personal risk when it comes to the subject of the poem.
Time is precious, and I appreciate that you spend some of your time here at Experience Writing reading and learning along with me. I set up a buy me a coffee account, so you can now buy me a beverage. It will help a lot.