poem. learning from my cat.

slow time
complete
happiness
in warmth
and sunshine

haiku. tagetes. summer flowering.

summer flowering
summer's here at last -
flowering bright against blue,
reflecting sunshine





Perhaps the summer really has arrived. The tagetes seem to think so!

haiku. close. blossom.

                                            What a wonderful blossom time this year.

Wagner birthday artefacts

Celebrating Wagner's significant birthday with knitting, collage, and letterpress. Photographed in front of my beloved Adana 8x5 letterpress machine you can see Brunhilde looking for a horse, Lohengrin looking for suitable transport, and the Flying Dutchman looking for love. The birthday cards have music from Lohengrin, birthday gift wrap and a letterpress printed name.

 I am taking them and lots of others to the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, 25th and 26th May. www.diffusionfestival.org

Here are the cards, with Brunhilde, who as you can see, has been looking in the Horse and Hound magazine for a new steed.

Knitted Literary Cohort ready for Diffusion Fair

Here are a few of the cohort of Literary and Operatic finger puppet collage cards, ready to travel from Hay on Wye to the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff.

Celebrating some of the great characters and stories of opera and literature, the idea for them came to me in a vision as I awoke at the end of Act 2 of a concert performance of Parsifal.

The cards have knitted finger puppets, text either handwritten or typed on my ancient typewriter, and collage. Here are King Lear and his Fool,

and Caliban and Ariel,

My current favourite is Don Giovanni, who you can see with the Commendatore on the bottom left of the first photograph.

I am really looking forward to bringing the cohort to Diffusion at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff at the weekend, 25th and 26th May.
www.diffusionfestival.org

Be careful. I think the puppets come alive at night.

Blue Moon poetry ready for Diffusion Publishing Fair

I have just finished making poetry seed packets, filled with blue moon poetry, ready for the fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing weekend.

Here's a poem naming each moon;

12 regular moons & one extra
old moon snow moon
crow moon

grass moon planting moon
rose moon

hay moon green corn moon
harvest moon

hunter's moon frosty moon
long night moon

blue moon

Occasionally there are two full moons in a calendar month. The second one is known as a blue moon, although it's not actually blue. I like to think that there are changes and shifts under a blue moon. And where better for the changes to start than in a dusty old map shop, a place that holds so many directions and definitions.

I am bringing the collection to the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, on 25th and 26th May. www.diffusionfestival.org

Here are future blue moons, so you can be prepared; July 2015, January & March 2018, October 2020. Be careful not to lose your way.

planting poetry ready for Diffusion publishing fair

Poetry to plant in your imagination.

I've never really liked the idea of poetry trapped on pages in a certain order, so I came up with poetry seed packets. The poems are printed on separate sheets, contained in a seed packet.

 Free range, if you like!


All handmade by me. That's what I am mostly doing this week, preparing for the Diffusion Festival Publishing weekend at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff on 25th and 26th May.

www.diffusionfestival.org

haiku. looking forward, back. cherry blossom

A haiku caught in the cherry tree branches, before the breeze lifts it away, and then returns for the blossom.


looking up, forward, back
catching the moment -
through blossom, leaves, each season
turning, returning

The tree has never been so beautiful.

poem. awakening. cherry blossom.

awakening
flowers of
joyful spring
dance,
held gently
by delicate stars








The cherry tree in my garden is finally in full flower, after a few sparse years.

poem. shaken up. blossom. gale.

 Just as everything is so calm and lovely, the weather changes.


Here's the poem;

shaken up
impatient
gale
whirling
placid blossom
from safe branches

poem. making time.

making time
I stand at the back door
whenever I can and
gaze at the garden,

at six in the morning
a minute or two to spare
as I drink my tea,

in the afternoon instead of
doing something else,

in the dusk as
the garden takes a breath,

or last thing at night

I stand at the back door
whenever I can and
gaze


It's the perfect antidote to feeling as though there is too much to do and too little time. I have lots of mirrors in my small garden, and this is the view of the looking glass garden through one of them.
 

haiku. ludwig van. clockwork orange

ludwig van
the glorious Ninth -
gorgeosity made flesh
O my brothers, O!



Celebrating Beethoven, and Clockwork Orange,
with letterpress and a page from the book.

I am making a series of cards of composers names, to take to the fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff on 25th and 26th May.
www.diffusionfestival.org

All the names have to be divisible by three, because I think that's the best look from my beautiful wooden letterpress letters.  Mozart, Brahms, Wagner and Schubert to follow.

floral ampersand. haiku.

Ampersands keep the seasons flowing. Here's my haiku;

open ended
seasons passing &
leaf & bloom & fruit & seed
& seasons passing

I have been drawing aceo floral ampersand cards to take to the fair at the Diffusion Festival Publishing Weekend in Cardiff on 25th & 26th May.
www.diffusionfestival.org

I am really enjoying my pointing finger pen nib.