Tag: Colleen Michaels

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In praise of the sound of crunching leaves

mwinikates
Graveyard, Arlington MA, October 2015. Photo by Meg Winikates
Graveyard, Arlington MA, October 2015. Photo by Meg Winikates

It’s autumn, and despite being an agreeably insane sort of busy right now, I had a chance to go out at lunch today and take in the seasonal delights. Peak foliage around town was actually probably the end of last week, but there’s still a lot of gorgeous to be had, and that brilliant invigorating bite in the breeze today is the sort that makes me glad to be alive.

And so in celebration of my favorite season, have a poem by fellow New Englander Emily Dickinson!

Besides the Autumn poets sing (131)
Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886

Besides the Autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze –

A few incisive mornings –
A few Ascetic eves –
Gone – Mr Bryant’s “Golden Rod” –
And Mr Thomson’s “sheaves.”

Still, is the bustle in the brook –
Sealed are the spicy valves –
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many Elves –

Perhaps a squirrel may remain –
My sentiments to share –
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind –
Thy windy will to bear!

If you’re hungry for more autumnal poetry, you might want to check out this Wednesday’s Improbable Places Poetry Tour.  Imagined, organized, and hosted by poet and Montserrat professor Colleen Michaels, this month’s stop on the tour is at Green Meadows Farm in South Hamilton, MA, and a gathering of poets will be reading a selection of their works on the theme of “Harvest/Moon”– including me!

I’ll be there to listen, bask by the bonfire under the moon, and read one of my own night sky pieces.  Hope to see you there!

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A Change is as good as a Line Break

mwinikates
Leading up to the Line Break room at PEM, installation by Colleen Michaels and Lillian Harden
Leading up to the Line Break room at PEM, installation by Colleen Michaels and Lillian Harden

You know that a public space is inviting if there are people in there every time you walk by.  When that space is a quiet area in a back corner of a museum set aside for poetic contemplation and respite, you make invisible fist pumps of joy and plan to come back later when you can abuse your staff privilege of getting in there before it opens to the public.

This is exactly what happened with Line Break, an installation at PEM for the Mass Poetry Festival.  (Read more about the background of the two artists and plans for the space here: Line Break on masspoetry.org)

When Colleen and Lillian first approached my colleague and I about a poetry installation during the festival, we were eager to try to make it happen, but neither of us suspected, I think, how successful they would be at creating the atmosphere they described: the soft hum and click of an old slide projector, the feeling of floating as you lay beneath the hammock of words, the wordless invitation of blank books and pure white pencils.

(Blank books always call to me, I always answer.)

Poetry hammock catches lines in Line Break
Poetry hammock catches words in Line Break

My favorite lines I saw float across the net/hammock were:

“if your net
were knit
by bloom
would it feel
like raised hands?”

And, based off another quote from a few lines later, I wrote this poemlet:

Transformations

Almost feather, almost fin
almost heaven, almost in.
Almost always, almost lost–
What’s the danger?  What’s the cost?
Almost sorry, almost wise,
almost perfect in your eyes.

line break room view
Really, the floor cushions were the part my inner child liked best.