Jes Lee

The final day of national poetry month

2013-04-25 08.36.02

Once again I find myself at Tuesday with another studio day ahead of me (plus a bit of work to do on my car with my dad). I can’t complain!

Wow, National Poetry Month and the 30 poems in 30 days challenge is done! I wrote my last poem this morning. I’m a little shocked that I actually completed this challenge! I am contemplating what is next. I think I will keep going with this, though I won’t keep posting them here (you all have graciously read enough raw unedited poetry for a year!!) but I do plan to keep them up in my journal. I think it will be a good journal practice exercise. Also: Editing!!! Lots and lots of editing!! I am very grateful for all the writing prompts that were posted on various websites along the way. They helped immensely!

Today I will be hanging out in my studio, working on my little platen press. I have to typeset the story of Digital for my show. I have edited her tale a lot over the last couple of weeks, and I think I am finally happy with both the words and the images they will go with.

Ok, my last two poems:

April 29th – I used a writing prompt from Hazel & Wren again. This one about cameras (my favorite topic perhaps?!)

The Doctor’s Camera

the shattered planet lay
on her examination table
sterile instruments spread out on either side
microscopic lifeforms
from the planet’s surface
slowly draining their way off
forming slowly spreading puddles
where she wished they wouldn’t.
she picked up her camera
and started to zoom in
on the broken planet
until she could see
the minute details
of each surface
the atoms and microscopic bits
that made up this little world
and when she had finally examined enough
she began to photograph
and replicate
and fix and heal and patch
and rebuild the pieces of this planet
back to a whole.

 

April 30th – this is about letterpress printing, which is on my mind today. ‘Scrape scrape pull’ is the rhythm I get into when I am mixing ink.

Scrape scrape pull

scrape
scrape
pull
scrape
scrape
pull
each letter has a weight
each word has a weight and meaning
each piece has a place
scrape
scrape
pull
scrape
scrape
pull
each image
on block
created by taking away
scrape
scrape
pull
scrape
scrape
pull
each piece
put together
to form a story
scrape
scrape
pull
scrape
scrape
pull
translucent mixes with
white mixes with
black but only a touch
scrape
scrape
pull
scrape
scrape
pull
ka-chung
pressing impressions
into fiber
into image
into memory
scrape
scrape
pull
scrape
scrape
pull

2013-04-25 08.36.02