Street Art In Kathmandu

My brother has lived in Kathmandu for over ten years and has often mentioned the crowding, pollution and crushing poverty he encounters every day.  Recently he sent some photographs of street art, reflecting  on the life-affirming generosity of spirit that moves people to create art of all kinds..  Sometimes I feel mournful at the damage we humans do to our mother earth, but it's important to remember the things we do that bless and give delight. My brother writes:

         All around the city, huge, beautiful, bizarre and captivating murals are being created.  I caught one of the artists in the act and stopped to talk.  He said that they are not commissioned, that the government neither sanctions nor interferes with what they do, and they do it just because they love art.  It makes all the difference in this frankly filthy and chaotic city....In my mind, these artists are true heroes.

       I agree.  Thank you, street artists of Kathmandu, and thanks Kent for sharing these photos with me!

 

A Meeting Place For Dreamers

"If you are a dreamer, come in." This line had an immediate and intense effect on me when I first read it at eight years old.  It's the first line of "Invitation," the first poem in Shel Silverstein's wonderful book of poems for children, Where the Sidewalk Ends.  I'd been given the book for Christmas, and encountering its humorous, imaginative, magically anarchic poems and drawings was like stumbling upon a magic spring and realizing I'd been thirsty all my life.  I felt that invitation had been written with me in mind. Silverstein had created in the pages of his book a meeting place for people like me - people who felt  the largeness and gorgeousness and scariness and absurdity of the world on their skin and in their bellies; people who knew that rhymes and jokes, riddles and fairy stories were spells of transformation and doorways into joyous mystery.  In other words, it was a book for children, by a grownup who still knew the language.

Some of Shel Silverstein's lines have stayed with me long after childhood, and they still delight.  I'm going to re-read Where the Sidewalk Ends this week, and if you want to immerse yourself in a hilarious and enchanting world, I recommend you do the same.

You can read the full (yet quite short) text of "Invitation" here: http://www.lverose.com/littleones/order/poem.htm

Do you have a book from your childhood to recommend?

Something Fun

I thought I'd occasionally share some writing games here.  ("Games" sounds a lot more fun than "exercises," don't you think?) Sometimes these games lead to poems or essays or stories, but a lot of the time they spark the imagination and wake up the ear to some new music.

Here's one that's good if you can write one interesting sentence, or one boring sentence with some interesting words or pictures in it.  Basically you write a sentence, and in the next line you repeat at least one word from that sentence, and then in each line after that you repeat the same word and/or another word from the first sentence, so that every line contains at least one word from the first sentence.  I find that I often discover hidden meanings and potentials in the repeated words, and sometimes I learn something about life, the universe, and everything.  

I'll give you a few sentences to start with, though of course you can write your own.  1. My mother begins to weep. 2. I used to dream about water.  3. A spider never stops weaving. 4. We didn't understand yesterday.  You can see there is nothing special about those sentences, except they have at least one concrete noun in them.  That helps I think.  If you use this game and end up with some kind of something, send it to me.  I'd love to read it, and with your permission, share it here.

Here's something I wrote using this method.  I don't know if I'd call it a poem, but I learned something about doorways.

 Just Now

You are standing in a doorway.

Where you are standing

is a doorway. You are standing

because you are not moving

in or out or through.  But standing

is a kind of moving if everything

else is moving, and everything

is moving which is why

what you are doing is standing, just

for a moment and where you are doing it

is a doorway – a doorway

neither here nor there - a doorway

neither in nor out - a doorway

that opens to more doorways,

that open  to more doorways

and doorway doorway doorway

which is why you are standing in a doorway.

Welcome

Welcome to what?
A window.  A question.
Just me, opening a drawer
and lifting from underneath
t-shirts faded by washings,
jeans thin at the knee,
mismated cotton socks,
embarrassing underthings, a wing.
It's rumpled, unweildy,
but look, there's a gleam
in each crease. It's my wing,
but with only one I flopped
in loopy circles, skinned my knees
as I careened against
the weight of things.

Do you have a wing?
Look in the back of your closet,
or in the box under your bed.
Then meet me.  Where the sky
is most longing, I'll be waiting
to take your hand and leap.