Member poetry share ⭐️ Join us Sunday!

This Sunday write poetry inspired by the art of Remedios Varo

•THIS SUNDAY! July 7th, 10:30am-12:30pm central- Online, “Ekphrastic Fantastic: Write poetry inspired by the art of Remedios Varo”, hosted on the Vision Train Zoom : FREE!

•Sunday, July 28th, 10:30am-12:30pm central- Image Word Mystery’s Mind-Bending, Heart-Opening, Creative Jam! On Lisette’s personal Zoom: FREE for Paid Subscribers -or- $25 here.

"That theater of yearning/ Proudly allowing dawn/ To fawn over all"

Self-Portrait, Leonora Carrington 1937-38 (source)

Grab yer notebook & let’s start with a prompt:

1. Looking at the image above, quickly ask yourself what 3 words it evokes. No wrong answers. Write them down. Quick! Quick!

2. Pick one of those words— This is the first word of a 5 word poem! Write the first word and give yourself four blank spots following it. ie: WORD+____+____+____+____. That will be your poem.

3. Set a timer for 3 minutes! Once your line is set up with the first word, look back at the image and begin to toy with what four words follow that first word. Write down ideas as they come until you land on the one that’s just right. Don’t work longer than 3 minutes!

Leave your 5-word-poems here:

You have just written an EKPHRASTIC poem!

That is: Poetry inspired by looking closely at a piece of art.

That’s what we’ll be doing again this Sunday with the art of badass surrealist Remedios Varo.

Here are three poems written by Image Word Mystery members during Ekphrastic Fantastic…

Shara Osgood, Miles Seiden & myself each wrote poems in response to the above Self-Portrait by Leonora Carrington during a ten-minute prompt.

🐎 What similarities do you notice in our poems? How are they different? What leaps out at you?:

(I highly recommend reading these out loud— To fill your mouth with the poetry of a friend is sweet sustenance!)

Reflections on Self Portrait of Leonora Carrington 
by Shara Osgood

My shoes
Pointed, buttoned, severe
Restricting & limiting me
Mere tender supports
For my vigorous life
Crazy wild fire
And electric edges
The starkness
Of my containment
Yellowed drapery
The stage for
The dramatic
What could be
My life
Things that
Might have
Been

Leonora’s Lead
by Miles Seiden

Eager to be free
As a horse unbridled
She settled
For the sad, saddleless
Wooden model
Softly rocking the walled spaces
Of mind and matter
Like an oaken token
From a long-forgotten fairy tale
Shaded pale by petrified time
And carried by the air
Apparent in Carrington’s canvas
Of woven fiber
And untamed hair

Maneless and tailless
Her unclad Samson
Would forever face
The graceful gait
Of a fully out there mare
Dispersing the forested fog
Beyond the square
Confines of a blue-gray
Ceiling and corner
Punctuated by parted
Canary curtains
That framed the aperture
Of a flat adventure —
That theater of yearning
Proudly allowing dawn
To fawn over all

Preoccupied and prepped
For her next ride
Leonora sidled up to her seat
Styled in white jodhpurs
Black paddocks
And a peaky green jacket
She sighed inside
Daringly hedged at the edge
Of a barely-there chair
Its minuscule legs
Like pegs improbably propping
The fidgeting physics of possibility
And casting periphrastic shadows
On tilted terra cotta tiles

She reached across the room
Concealing forked coordinates
From the outlook of onlookers
Right hand expanding
Distractedly dexterous digits
Toward a three-teated hyena
Raising a mirrored paw
To meet its manifester
With wild and banded scavengers
Its medieval people eyes
Staring fiercely forward
Alongside Leonora
Locked everlong
In a surreal scene
Surrounded by self-symbols
And the smudge
Of a once-essence

Self-Portrait
by Lisette Murphy

I've tamed the beast
but she wilded me...

My blue eyed hyena, 
my
food
my 
source.

For my next act:
Watch me go off the rails!

For my next act:
Catch me if you can!

Join us this Sunday for creative play!

July 7th, 10:30am-12:30pm central- Online, “Ekphrastic Fantastic: Poetry inspired by the art of Remedios Varo”, hosted on the Vision Train Zoom, FREE

And for $6 a month or $60 a year you can join me for every live Creative Jam: mind-bending, heart-opening, writing-drawing-playing-prompting sessions on Zoom. Our next Jam is July 28th! Upgrade to paid to join for free- or find tickets here.

⭐️In coming weeks I’m very excited to share full features on Shara, Miles and several more long-time friends of Image Word Mystery. These are the folks who have been making ecstatic poetry & tender art with me from the beginning of the Vision Train & ViTra Academy. Each of them artists, poets and visionaries, you’ll see what makes creating together in this circle so potent!

see you soon!!!