Saturday, August 21, 2010

Introduction: Miriam Sagan

Featured Picnic reader and Writing Workshop guest instructor, Miriam Sagan writes, 

I've been working again at The Land/An Art Site. My present project, Winter Stars Midden," is a collaboration with glass sculptor/installation artist Leah Stravinsky. The text grew out of participating in "Azimuth: Writing on Walls," Albuquerque's Land Art show and citywide event last summer, and a visit to sculptor Charles Ross' "Star Axis." The opposite of a monolithic structure, it looks within, to an inner north star.

azimuth1
Writing on Walls reception, THE LAND gallery
More about LAND ART projects  (Extreme Media Studies)

I enjoy teaching in a setting that is both outdoors and an art site. In the plein air workshop session at THE LAND ART's Mountainair location, we'll use words, images, installations, and natural setting as inspiration. My "Star Midden" text started out as a pantoum, a wonderful repeated form, which will also be the basis of some of our exploration.

My website / blog, Miriam's Well, covers my Star Midden project among many other topics, including interviews with poets, travel writing, reflections on place, writing poetry, teaching and more, poems ~ mine and others.

Miriam, writing "on site" at THE LAND/an art site

WINTER STARS MIDDEN

winter stars, pebbles in the arroyo
what do you gather in, hold

islands in the seas, the body
as an image of the cosmos

what do you gather in, hold
alaya–a storehouse of senses and seeds

as an image of the cosmos
a place marked and swiftly abandoned

alaya–a storehouse of senses and seeds
like a Anasazi stone granary
a place marked and swiftly abandoned
Pleiades are a wound in the constellation

an Anasazi stone granary
Sirius, Betelgeuse, Aldeboron

Pleiades are a wound in the constellation
of the starry horned Bull

Sirius, Betelgeuse, Aldeboron
color is vibration made visible

the starry horned Bull
is just a kiln of suns

color is vibration made visible
fused across empty space

is just a kiln of suns
crucible, calligraphic

fused across empty space
distance is distance from the self

crucible, calligraphic
what does it mean to be lost

distance is distance from the self
the map drawn in the dirt erased by wind

what does it mean to be lost
even the blind know the horizon

the map drawn in the dirt erased by wind
a shadow falls behind, as does the past

even the blind know the horizon
a cast of dried mud and raindrops

a shadow falls behind, as does the past
anthills, packrat middens

a cast of dried mud and raindrops
your words written in radium

anthills, packrat middens
architecture is narrative

your words written in radium
your words written in dust

architecture is narrative
the opening exhibition is Polaris

your words written in dust
a meaningful north star

the opening exhibition is Polaris
my souvenir of the Milky Way

an inner north star
or destination

my souvenir of the Milky Way
islands in the seas, the body

or destination–
winter stars, pebbles in the arroyo

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