10 rules of writing (which apply to all creative work) from one of our greatest living writers:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/09/05/jeanette-winterson-10-tips-on-writing/
They all boil down to: “Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.” – Neil Gaiman
Donating = Loving
The mist that
covers my heart
is thick
numbing mornings
and evenings
with the sagacity
of a cubist artifact.
It comes in layers
clinging with fetid fingers
on to the gargoyles
of the old mansion
our love has become.
No surprise from
any shadow
No brush
with velveteen
vulnerable
acts of tenderness.
Dragons and starlings
seem nearer
in the dancey mists
Love is uncovered
in a smile
at first light…
Is that enough?
© Iulia Halatz
Photography art – Grace M.Ballentine – Morning Mist
I am delighted that five of my poems were included in the Sudden Denouement Anthology Volume I. The anthology is now available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky.”
– Kahlil Gibran
Art by Daniel Garber.
I Still Don’t Know How To Love by Jasper Kerkau
“Love is so allusive. Everyone is looking for something that will ultimately disappoint them. I have mild conversation at laundromats and book stores. I have taken up a life of leisure, try to find God in simple things, but it is all so complicated. Everyone is so broken…”
https://suddendenouement.com/2018/12/10/i-still-dont-know-how-to-love-jasper-kerkau/
[Jasper Kerkau is a writer/editor/co-creator of Sudden Denouement. His personal blog is Jasperkerkauwriting.com]
We are first attracted by someone because their bag of stories, life or imaginary, glimmers fresh and enticing.
You know they come from another tale. Their mind and legs have trodden softly on exotic paths.
You want to wander deserts, seas and storms with them and listen to their medley of words that heat like fire in midwinter.
We are hardwired with curiosity and a secret cipher to unlock any new stories to put together these tales we travel with swiftly and innocently.
“We tell each other stories in order to survive” – Joan Didion
We tell each other stories in order to survive and sur-thrive.
We write your surviving and sur-thriving stories.
I illustrate with a story within a perfume story – by René Gruau (1971) for Miss Dior Parfum.
© Iulia Halatz
“I am a book of snow.
A spacious hand, an open meadow, a circle that waits.
I belong to the earth and its winter.”
From Pablo Neruda, “Winter Garden.”
Art – Snowstorm, Astoria, NY, 1940, by Frank Navara
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination…”
– Mary Oliver
Art by Albert Marquet.
A playful celebration of the magic of language:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/19/take-away-the-a-book/
www.brainpickings.org is a trailblazing castle of knowledge located in the enchanted forest where ideas dance and glimmer like so many fern flowers.
Donating = Loving
“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.” – Robert Graves
Art by Abdul Mati Klarwein.
Magnificent and magnanimous piece of writing by Erich Michaels (“magnanimous” because he has shared it with us):
“We’re all in a state of continual decay
Casting off neutrinos, alphas and betas
Dander and forgotten moments of yesterday
Fluttering to the floor is what their fate is…”
https://erichmichaels.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/half-life/
Erich Michaels describes himself as “just trying to share the human experience.” He has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing, but find himself writing SOPs (lather, rinse, repeat) in order to make a living, which can be detrimental to the creative process. You can find him on the road to recovery at Erich Michaels. Every journey begins with a single step, right?