In Collusion

Thought I'd share the completed abstract compositions project I recently took part in; called "In Collusion", it was a poetry/collage project put together by writer and artist Makyla Curtis which required collaborators to create poems from a series of words provided, accompanied by pictures sourced from anywhere that had had to fit within the squares of the paper booklet.  Here are the pages from my contribution...

I really enjoyed this process - I cut up all the words and played around with them, and it was interesting to see how the various words and pictures I chose (from an old tourist book about Amsterdam) kind of started to bounce off each other and inspired different themes and ideas for each page.  Now, back to that last essay of mine...

Abstract Compositions Project

This is what my Saturday looks like (in between editing photographs and working on an English essay...)

I'm taking part in writer/artist/editor Makyla Curtis' "In Collusion" project and have been spending the day cutting and pasting my way through my own little book of poetry and pictures.  You can find out more about Makyla here on her blog and information about the project here.

Poetica: The Reveal

Yesterday I got to meet Elise - Founder of the Poetica Project in Christchurch, and sign my name to my poem the wall; I'm so grateful that I've been able to get involved in such a great scheme to spread poetry around this changing city.

Thanks to my fab friends for joining me. Here's hoping I'll be partaking in more Poetica projects in the future.
xo.

Poetica

Poetica is the Christchurch Urban Poetry Project: an initiative which aims to brighten up our earthquake stricken streets with poetical inspiration.  There are park benches poised for reinvigoration with poetry, blank walls awaiting new found lyrical lives, and spaces where poetry can be read aloud and enjoyed by passers by; in short, it's a pretty cool creative collaboration to be a part of so I decided to get amongst it.

 Members of the public are encouraged to write their own poetry, take a photo, and upload it onto the Poetica Facebook page for others to enjoy.  In addition, the poem with the most "likes" at the end of September, will be painted permanently on the wall. 

On the left, is my little contribution, inspired by the earthquakes our city has experienced and is still working hard to recover from.  Much to my surprise, it's gaining a lot of support and just might be the one chosen to be painted. 

Click here to see more and here if you'd like to "like' mine and help me get mine painted on the wall!  (Or like, feel free to like another one of course!) (Ok, enough with the likes, I promise...)                   

UPDATE: It's going to be painted on the wall! Exciting!

Blackmail Press (& the meaning of "cool")

Just a quick note to say that Issue 33 of Blackmail Press (edited by Doug Poole) has been released and my poem "Working Class" makes an appearance.  Click on the first link for the author index and read away! 

This is a picture of Ernest Hemingway kicking a beer can.  You are right.  This has nothing to do with anything.  But if the sweet clothing style and impressive leg extention, coupled with the serene surroundings isn't your definition of "cool", then my friends, I just don't know what is.

Happy Sunday!

Deconstructed

via

Today I'm sharing the poem that was recently printed in Issue 9 of Potroast.  The theme was diagrams, how to guides, instructions, components etc.  So I decided to write something based around the idea of distorting the "true" meaning of a word by breaking it up and concentrating on the other words embedded with in it, thereby creating something radically different than what was intended or expected.  This was very much an experiment for me, and it has spawned a few new pieces exploring a similar theme.  Here goes...

De-con-struct

An explanation, friend,

                is not

A telling how or why

                but

A former 2D colony,

Lost for scheme, design and strategy

That is now a body politic

With all its bones but buried.

A diagram, therefore,

                is not

a picture, showing

                but

A letter sent to someone suffering

Where stops are small black breaths, for

Ironic font typed names

Behind dull plastic panes

A system, then

                is not

a whole comprised of separate parts

                but

A shaft of growth, diseased

No budding colour at the apex

Just the start of inconvenience

A growth toward the end of ends.

A method, it follows,

                is not

A numbered process or procedure

                but

One’s harsh demise abbreviated

By chemical conspiracies

The true end product of its excess

And networked faulty compass Norths.

So therefore,

then,

it follows,

friend,

That context

                is not

Meaning

                can’t be

Message, sense or point,

                but rather,

Lying, cheating phrases,

With manipulative tendencies,

Absolving themselves of all

literary

Host responsibility.

Copyright: Kirsty Helen, 2012.

Haiku Experiment

     I.                                                  II.                                                      III.

     Now all that is left                          See the fallen leaves                            My cold hands, outstretched

     Is seasonal confetti                        Hear them crack and crumble               Become ghostly in the fog 

     Strewn across my path                   Winter's breath has come                     Stolen by the grey

Image via