What I Made Today: Po' Man's Copper Foil

Po' Man's copper foil pendant necklace

So far, this is my favorite of the necklaces. In my last What I Made Today blog entry, I posted just the pendants. Over the last few days I've been oxidizing silver-plated chain and making gemstone bangles, both of which I attached to the pendant.

I've included a number of my Po'Man's necklaces (and sterling silver & gemstone earrings and necklaces), at the Salt Lake City Art Council's Annual Holiday Craft Exhibit & Sale . The Exhibit opens tonight and runs December 4 to December 20 from 1:00 - 7:00. The show features the work of local artists and craftsmen and you can expect to find something for everyone at reasonable prices: everything from original paintings and sculpture, decorative and functional ceramics, jewelry, tie-dyed clothing, hand-knitted hats, silk scarves, brilliant stainglass stars, to hand-lathed pens, seriously groovy children's toys, artist's journals, and an eclectic assortment of Christmas ornaments and cards.

One year I got my daughter a owl hand puppet. I think I loved it much more than she did. I always end up finding at least one fantastic piece of art to add to my collection.

The opening is tonight, and it's something of a madhouse, but the fun kind, with cheerful art-loving people snatching up gifts for friends, family, and themselves.

How to Write a Paradelle Poem

I went to hear Billy Collins read at the Salt Lake Public Library when he was the poet laureate. It was a standing room only event, and I was lucky to get in the auditorium, especially since I didn't have a ticket. He was charming and hilarious,and the audience loved him.

If you google paradelle, you'll find that one description is that it is a type of noodle. Thanks for the laugh, Mr. Collins.

A paradelle is a modern poetic form which was invented by United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins as a parody of the villanelle.

Collins claimed that the paradelle was invented in eleventh century France, but he actually invented it himself to parody strict forms, particularly the villanelle. His sample paradelle, "Paradelle for Susan" (c1997), was intentionally terrible, completing the final stanza with the line "Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to".

Directions:
1. Insert tongue in cheek and read Collin's note and instructions on the paradelle form: The paradelle is (in Collins' own note) "one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century.
a. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas...
b. ...in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical.
c. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words.
d. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only those words."
2. Choose a photograph as insipiration for your poem.
3. Follow Collin's instructions & write an original paradelle.

Paradelle for Susan
Billy Collins

I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Thinnest love, remember the quick branch.
Always nervous, I perched on your highest bird the.

It is time for me to cross the mountain.
It is time for me to cross the mountain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
Another pain for me to darken the mountain.
And find the time, cross my shore, to with it is to.

The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
The familiar waters below my warm hand.
Into handwriting your weather flies you letter the from the.

I always cross the highest letter, the thinnest bird.
Below the waters of my warm familiar pain,
Another hand to remember your handwriting.
The weather perched for me on the shore.
Quick, your nervous branch flew from love.
Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to.

House Is A Memory
Danna
Lauren lies curled like a comma in the shadow of our house,
Lauren lies curled like a comma in the shadow of our house.
Her child's body punctuating memory,
her child's body punctuating memory.
Of punctuating: In our shadow house, a child's memory.
Her body like curled lies. Lauren, the comma.

Parallel universe is house and shadow,
parallel universe is house and shadow.
Scratched into damp earth, a jagged door, sightless windows, and fence,
scratched into damp earth, a jagged door, sightless windows, and fence.
House is sightless shadow, door into a damp and scratched universe,
jagged windows and fence parallel earth.

Brady rests on the periphery of light, like a pharaoh in repose,
Brady rests on the periphery of light, like a pharaoh in repose.
Childhood and memory disappearing into the shadows with the setting sun,
Childhood and memory disappearing into the shadows with the setting sun.
Disappearing like a childhood memory into the shadow's periphery,
setting, with the on-sun, and in repose, Brady, the pharaoh of light, rests.

The shadow rests. House is a memory curled and disappearing
like shadows with our comma childhood punctuating the periphery.
Shadow lies in a body of scratched light and into Brady
and Lauren into parallel universe, her child's memory
the jagged sun setting on sightless earth,
and the house of fence, door, and windows
like a damp pharaoh in repose.

My paradelle was inspired by Abelardo Morell's photo Laura and Brady in the Shadow of Our House, 1994 from DoubleTake Summer 1999

Poem Therapy at 9:22 A.M. - Mary Oliver

THE JOURNEY
Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets, and this poem, along with Wild Geese are poems that I return to in flush and fallow times.

Poem Therapy at 10:02 A.M. - Anne Porter

Winter Twilight
Anne Porter

On a clear winter's evening
The crescent moon

And the round squirrels' nest
In the bare oak

Are equal planets.


The full moon was visible in the early morning sky for a few hours from my office window this morning. Much earlier, the light from the moon illuminated the darkness of my bedroom. December's first moon heralds the coming snow.

When my daughter was small and still in her car seat, I remember we were driving by the local mall, and for whatever reason, I was in the back seat with her. She had cupped her hand and said, "Look Mommy, I'm holding the moon", and it looked as if she was balancing the moon in the palm of her hand.

There are two full moons in December. According to The Farmer's Almanac, the first full moon is called Full Cold Moon, (also know as Long Night's Moon by some Native American tribes. The second full moon is called a Blue Moon.

What I Made Today

front images of Poor Man's pendants

back images of Poor Man's pendants

I've been having a great time making Poor Man's pendants and oxidizing sterling silver chains and findings for necklaces this week. The images I've posted are pendant examples of what I'm calling my Poor Man's copper foil jewelry. They are in the beginning stage of assemblage; the gemstones and oxidized components have yet to be added.

I've made soldered copper foil jewelry for years, but I've been searching for materials that are more in keeping with my collage and mixed-media sensibilities. I finally found material that is lighter than beveled or slide glass. Also, after numerous attempts, I've figured out a process that is less labor intensive than soldering copper foil onto sandwiched glass, (the image is secured inside the glass and sealed with the copper foil, thus "sandwiched". The materials and process I've came up with is a brilliant alternative to copper foil, (if you think I'm getting uppity, just imagine I said "brilliant alternative" in Elmer Fudd's voice, and you'll feel much better).

I'll post a How To make Poor Man's Copper Foil Jewelry another day.

Isabel Allende in the City of Salt

Isabel Allende is in Salt Lake City today for a lecture, "In the Hearts of Women". A panel discussion and screenings of films adaptations of her books are slated for tomorrow, (check the link for details).

I think of Allende's writing as my gateway drug to magical realism. My introduction to Allende's work was Stories of Eva Luna which I read in my early twenties. My favorite book in her ouevre is The House of Spirits which I think is her strongest work, ushered in the allure of magical realism. Although she is a formidable literary and politcal voice, I think her early writing is more powerful.

How to Write a Poem about Piranhas

A friend sent Montesonti's poem years ago with the challenge to write a poem based on the subject matter, piranha. I wrote my version in a few minutes, but revisit it at least once a year to make changes. I write fiction, but read and write poetry because I love it, but also to work on language and imagery.

If you'd like to give the piranha poem exercise a try, I've included directions, Montesonti's poem, and my piranha poem.

Piranha Exercise

Directions:
1. brainstorm piranha facts, common knowledge info, images, etc.
2. focus on an emotion and list all the associations it evokes; explore all aspects of the emotion
3. focus on a person you know well and write a list of attributes that describe this person; explore all aspects of the person
4. begin writing about piranhas, (remeber to hold the emotion and person in your mind) yet realize what you’re really exploring and writing about is the person for which you listed attributes

Pirahna
Frank Montesonti

I try to tell my students to use images
like, say, a piranha eating an apple
or a piranha flying through the air
and biting a woman's jugular.
Maybe you cold say that when the blood
sprays from the woman's neck it looks like, hmm,
a red Chinese fan.

When I'm asked what a poem should be like
I say simply state the fact that a full-sized cow can walk into a river
and a school of piranha can devour it in two minutes.
They work their way in the belly and eat out the soft organs,
then you see the skin and head dance on top of the water.

Frank, do all our poems have to be about piranhas?
One of my students asks, the piranha,
such a biting question, ahh, and yes her flesh is tender...

No, no, not if you don't want them to be about piranhas,
I tell her, of course I really don't see the point of not writing about piranhas
that moment when the water starts to break and pop

before the frenzied eating.



Piranha
Danna

there is one who sits in the back
braced against the brick wall
the hard animal of his body
an ode to a time
when man killed what he ate

he shifts in his seat
runs a hand through dark hair
words are dark fish swimming inside him
scaling the water's spume with rigid dorsals

a fin unfurls inside him,
razor-teethed words hoover
the mute chambers of his heart
until the taut fish of his body breaks surface
teeth bared and gleaming like pearls