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The Wandering Poet

  • Journal
  • Books
    • Dreaming in Night Vision | A Hybrid Memoir
      • Amazon Reviews| “Dreaming in Night Vision”
      • “Dreaming in Night Vision” Excerpt
      • How we Created the Cover for Dreaming in Night Vision
      • The Night Vision Explosions that Inspired the Title
    • The Trauma Scope | Poems
      • Read a poem about creating an alphabet out of tombstone moss
      • Read a poem about a Victorian mourning bottle made to catch tears
    • The Wishing Bones | Poems
      • Afghanistan Poem
      • Audio: My 98-Year Old Neighbor Reads a Selection
      • Audio: An Old Friend & I Read “Garden Variety Porn”
      • Audio: Poet Louise Larchbourne Reads my War Poem “Forever’s Requiem”
    • Spikeseed | Poems
      • “Spikeseed” |A Pocketful of Poems
      • My HIroshima Poem “August 6, 1945” Chosen to Represent “Shadow Day,” a Day of Remembrance
  • Forthcoming
    • Madness & Joy / The Novel I’m Working On – Follow my Progress!
      • Madness & Joy | Photo Album of Main Characters
      • How I came up with the Title “Madness & Joy”
      • Sneak peak at the Prologue for Madness & Joy
      • How I Outlined my Plot with Index Cards
    • Calliope & Swansblossom / a Prose & Photography Book (in Collaboration with Artist Sean Quinn)
  • Paper Moth Studio
    • Paper Moth Gallery
    • Giclée Archival Fine Art Prints & Gifts
    • Tales from the Blade / Paper Cuts in Progress
    • Mixed Media Paintings
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    • Reviews
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Where I Wander

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A few more miniature souvenirs from the antiques market at Lucca: a tiny book to sketch the cathedrals I visit, a metal sleeve to hold a mary charm, and a trifold Saint Mary of Montenegro mini-altar for my bedside. When folded, the outside reads "Ovunque proteggimi" - protect me everywhere. . Incidentally, my dad and I spent a beautiful day in Montenegro (Cinque Terre) last month. The mountain is famous for a miraculous fountain that appeared when a local found a picture of Mary buried in the ground. On pilgrimage I collect feather-light souvenirs; postcards, miniature relics and amulets the size of a 2-euro coin. One of the relics is hidden inside a round piece of fabric, sewn tight over 50 years ago. A saint's bone shard? A chipped tile from a tomb? A pebble from pilgrimage? I've glued it into my journal, a little round mystery. My Paper Moth Studios T-Shirts Have Arrived - I'm in Paper Moth Heaven! . What would a paper moth's heaven be? A lightbulb? I think so; good thing Sean is an electrician as well as an editor. He handles fragile bulbs all day and his thoughts follow even brighter incandescences. No wonder I singe my dreams against him every night, getting as close as possible. . I'm SO EXCITED about these T-shirts! It feels like Christmas. I'll be travelling extensively for the next few months, so I won't set up shop just yet. I'm just building up inventory, testing out printers, comparison shopping... . Paper cut artwork is so fragile - truly like moth wings, or lace wings. I love that each original cutting can be printed on note cards, T-shitts, tote bags, you name it. I can add to the designs however I like, I can repeat them to create patterns, or change the transparency, etc. . My images are my grown-up toys! . In fact I just ordered special fabric paper from a camping supply store - it's like cutting through clouds - but it doesn't rip! So I'm going to make a papercut dress for Sean, panel by panel, & sew the seams together. I can't wait to see the play of light through the illustrated (cut) panels! . I'm no perfectionist so anything I create has ragged edges- even my hair, my nailpolish, my boots - they're all scruffy & well-loved. As Japanese tattoo artists do, I leave part of my designs unfinished - to pronounce my humility and human fallibility. I'm a huge fan of wabi sabi philosophy. . I'm so excited that even when a papercut is "finished," I can still play with the image for as long as I like - even if I've sold or gifted the original. Playing with black and white? Light & shadow? Creating designs on Inkscape, Photoshop? Being a pattern-maker? Aaaahhhh..... . These past couple of years have been the toughest in my life and I had no idea how I would make it through - but there have been so many gifts in that dark time - one of which is Paper Moth Studios and all the little friends and forests that appear from beneath my hands. . I'm so happy. Coffee liqueurs from the lovely #dittaartigianale cafe by Piazza della Passera. I love things immortalized, memorialized, cured, steeped, preserved, aged, stoppered in bottles: liquor, SOS's, damsels, elderflower cordials, ashes, spirits, hedgerow fruit conserves, ships. . My favorite artisan in San Niccolo stoppers memories in bottles, with labels that hint at poetry: day by the river, sun, laughter, 2015. . Or my friend @alifeofsass' brilliant installation art in which she placed the ashes of a burned manuscript in a little collection of antique medicine bottles. . Sean made me a special medicine cabinet for my invisible illnesses, with old bottles, vials, and tins with ornate labels tied to them with string. The medicine inside is invisible too, but remarkably effective; a round of applause, "removing cream" to eliminate anything from rashes to bad moods to nightmares, and the dust from old panic pills to sprinkle over my head. . The first bottles were animal stomachs, filled with grass, then emptied, cured, and filled with water or moonshine. "We are all illegal immigrants" / this strikes a chord with me as I've been struggling for nearly two years to be legally recognized as Sean's wife in the UK. The bureaucracy drags on, and in the interim, people who don't understand EU law hold our fate in their hands. Appropriately, one of the chapters in my exile memoir is "La Clandestina." A woman's statue in a gallery on via Maggio by the remarkable sculptor Jeanne-Isabelle Corniere. I love that the figure holds an hourglass, as my life in Florence has involved limbo and waiting too. I never wear a watch or consult a calendar...sundials and hourglasses are gentler, more human-paced. I smile each time I walk past my appropriated self-portrait and watch my shadow inhabit her for a moment. @allerlei_wilde & her bf / such an awesome day exploring & photographing a derelict factory building last month - immortalizing the beauty of broken things, finding hiding places you scrape your knees to get to, and swirling on rooftops beneath the deep sky that was all ours until we climbed down from the blue on uneven stairs, steadying ourselves on a banister twined with ivy vines as thick as my wrist. "Distressed Street Opera" Last night's mixed media painting

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