A friend died in a head-on car crash a year
ago. Cathy was a runner, and she was driving home from an event that was a goal
for her, that she had planned and trained for, that she exhilarated in
completing. She was with her best friend, Helen, and she died too. I cannot yet
comprehend it, and probably never will. Like with the deaths of other friends
and colleagues, my response eventually was, to just try and live. To do things.
Like a great dark clumsy submerged creature asleep, I stirred, listening, what
could I do, what could I do?
Just before New Year 2016 Lizz Murphy told
me about Project 366, and hell, Kit and Anna were getting it going (friends
from Sydney in the 1980s). Why not do it I thought? I had been feeling other
calls, having moved from Sydney in the late 80s for study and work, the
association and allegiances of that time in Sydney so dear, Poets Union, the
workshops of No Regrets, Left and Feminist, and poetry readings in Newtown and
Redfern, and I decided, yes, I will try to do this post a day thing, be with
these dear people, meet new ones. Me, someone who writes, but doesn’t publish
very much, doesn’t send my work out through fear that it’s not good enough, who
has mainly written short fiction and an unpublished novel, and part of another,
whose prose is poetic, poetry is prosey, who doesn’t know where to try to be
with my writing.
Kit suggested I think whether I could
manage the post a day thing, and I figured if a photo could count too if no
words were there for me that day (which seemed quite possible) I would try. I have managed to post a poem and image every
day. For me to keep producing something however small or light has meant a
great deal to me, and to be connected to other poets and artists, to be part of their
day as they are part of mine, has been so good. Over the year I have thought if
this participation in Project 366 is the major creative output in my life, then
I am happy. I am blessed. And I thank this Project 366 (aka Project 365 + 1) community
and especially Kit and Anna and everyone who has done some administering and
helping out over the year, everyone who has been so generous with their creativity
and friendship.
I wake and the first thing I do is read
what is new on the project, and often it is the last thing I do as I go to
sleep. Dylan, my husband, has joined recently and I have watched others’
appreciation of his connection with animals and landscapes, and seen him walk
and find and wander, finding time in his busy work life, to find and make images.
Project 366 is such a good space.
At first I wanted to document all the connections
and currents and responses I felt and perceived in all the poems and art, but
realised I wouldn’t be able to do a post a day if I did that. I would have loved
to have done that.
I feel more legitimacy as a writer through
this project. I have become more comfortable with showing pieces in this way. I
have attempted new forms for me, sought advice when I didn’t quite get how to
make them. I have become interested in rhyme, something I have disdained in the
past. I am more attune to my own patterns of creating. I have been doing other
creative work, as we all have, along with this project. But Project 366 is a
current running through it all, and I have felt to be in great, generous, kind company.
I have always wanted to comment and respond and engage more, but am often staggering
to the line with my poem at 11.59 pm. Often in awe of others.
In terms of practice I notice I sometimes travel
over the same territory again, re-remembering, and I realise that is OK.
The photographic element has surprised me.
The ease of using the iphone as a camera, and its unexpected quality, has
enabled the image project to travel with me and be something in itself. I have
noticed how much I enjoy details and textures, how much I dwell on them whether
I am taking a photo, writing a poem, or not. How much joy that observation
brings me. Shadows and dreams were what I told Kit 2016 would be about, and it
has been, as well as other things. I often turn to my recent catch of images to
find inspiration for a poem, match them with the inspiration of others’ poems
or art, to see how they might work off each other.
I didn’t want my quick visual capture of
images to override what I was trying with words, which is a more laborious
process sometimes, more fearful. Then I realised the photos weren’t just an illustration
but part of the project, my noticing and capturing and framing in the visual
world a parallel journey to the one in language, perhaps the same journey. I am
often thinking about the same things, even subliminally, when noticing that
potential photo, framing it, or asking for a poem, for words to form.
I admire the groups political poems, and
want to find the voice for my own. I go there sometimes, but it wrecks me
emotionally, and I have to go back to nature, memory etc to rebalance, to be able
to create again the next day.
the covering territory eternal return business is v interesting ... after I posted my 'truth' poem yesterday ... I had a hunt back through the file and saw that, over the year, I had had three other poems with titles with 'truth' in them -- and that truth got used a lot elsewhere as well ... I guess you could call that a theme ! the point is that in this kind of day-to-day work we've been doing there's necessarily a lot of spontaneity -- and that actually means not knowing what yr doing or where today's work fits one or two steps up the organisational hierarchy that makes, for instance, a m/s or a performance work ... which is why Project 52 is a natural, and I think necessary, next step
ReplyDeleteI do agree : Project 52 is a natural, and I think necessary, next step
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