High Humidity

Such high humidity. Everything is swollen-- plank floors, cupboard doors, fingers and toes.

Went swimming yesterday with my daughter Meghan, and we talked and talked and swam and bobbed for over an hour. We were cool prunes when we decided to get out. I did feel so much better. The heat just drives a nail through the top of my head. We shut the farmhouse up during the day and it does stay quite cool. Then open windows after dusk. Again, it's going to be in the 90s. Making fold books with my workshop today. They are a great bunch of children (8-12).


I've been thinking about projects versus free-wheeling writing (define as, inspiration on the go).

I think the project focuses intention. Can be the best way to explore voice through persona.
Can be an opportunity of invention. Creates the sequence. Makes me look hard at each poem's individuality, that is, can the poem stand on its own or does it depend on the strength (cumulative effect) of the sequence. Whereas "inspiration on the go" is quite random and I tend to bounce around in several genres. This has been my creative mode this summer. I think the project allows you to dive deeper, because it contains or has its own form. So, liberation occurs within the form. I think some of my "random" work has been the deep dive, and some has been a skipping stone. Nothing is intentionally linking up, but maybe it does link in subtle ways (?)

But I do love listening to people discuss their projects; and I love figuring out the trajectory of the project when I get to read its final version. I like process.


Now off to my workshop. Glue sticks and stickers, ready, set, go!