Cutting It Up

Way back in August I told you about how I had written out my poem on calico using masking fluid.

I left it alone because I didn't like the piece and couldn't think of what I could do to it to be able to finish it.  Eventually after I got back from Australia in mid-October, I cut it up into strips.

Then I piece it back together with strips of undyed calico, making it landscape instead of portrait.

I left it again for a couple of weeks before bonding the words 'fettered' and 'unfettered onto it.

The 'unfettered' doesn't really show up until you get close to it.  I decided to running stitch round the letters.

I finished the letter outlines and then added musical notes.  I have been having a lot of problems lately with getting bondaweb to bond properly.  I love Mistyfuse but you can't draw on it because it doesn't have a backing sheet.  I tried ironing it onto freezer paper but it stuck to the paper.  Fortunately I found some HeatnBond in my stash and tried that.  It seems to be successful.

All that's left to do is add the binding.  However first, I need to decide whether the binding shows as an edge or not.  I'll let you know what I decide.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Things in Threes

Through September and October in our photography group we could choose from a selection of titles.  I chose 'Things in Threes'.

A house number

A piece of rubbish

3 things not usually seen together!

Boats in a tree

Boats under a tree

A sculpture in the Botanic Garden

The above was a bit of a cheat as there were actually 5 of the metal shapes.

And lastly not things, but granchildren!

Thanks for being here today
Bernice

Stanzas (verses)

The thread of a recent Write Poetry zoom workshop was the use of stanzas in a poem.

We first looked at the poem 'A Short Story of Falling' by Alice Oswald.  After which we were asked to write our own short story.  Here's mine:

A Short Story of Sewing 

Thoughts become words, inspired
by form and structure, required

to write a poem. A nonet,
a pantoum but not a sonnet. 

Words in order on the page
hoping the reader will engage

with thoughts and rhymes
and chains and crimes.

These same words written on calico,
cut up, reassembled, ready to sew.

Machined, hand stitched, and bound.
Words no longer clear or found

jumbled together, constrained by chains
The poet’s thoughts alone remain

I didn't do the second exercise which was to write a meditation using the sonnet form. We had looked at Carol Ann Duffy's poem 'Prayer'.

The third poem was 'Tail' by Sujata Bhatt.  I used the poem's two opening lines for my poem.

Marks on Paper 

Meaningless black marks
cover my page, they stretch and grow
                                                into words.

The words clamour for a sentence,
the sentence for another.

The marks become the punctuation
as sentence after sentence forms
until a paragraph is seen.

The black marks write their own story
forming and unforming
bringing ideas and thoughts together. 

Until another page is covered
before the last black mark’s
                                         full stop.

Thanks for being here today
Bernice