After the blur of a week spent in Chicago for AWP, I am grateful for days like today. I am the only one home except for Johnny & Baby, the dog and cat we are watching for the week. I started my morning with a glass of orange juice by the fireplace (where Johnny decided he'd like to sit too and so only left me with a sliver).

I've been working on a few collages lately. Some on found paper like the one below, others in Photoshop and Illustrator. It's interesting collaging digitally because it frees up the hand even more than "traditional" collage and allows you to play with many possibilities at once. I find I can work longer and more steadily this way, maybe just because I am so used to sitting in front of a computer. However, the choosing of materials and even the source of some images still involves the hand, so it's never a completely automated process, and I wouldn't want it to be.

Writing wise, I almost never compose my poems on the computer screen, and do not type them until further in the revision stage. This is partly out of stubbornness but also because part of what I so enjoy about writing is the physical act; the scratch of the pencil on paper, the thick atmosphere of pauses and thought.



This collage has been sitting in my studio for a few weeks now. If anyone out there has some suggestions for how to resolve it, I would love to hear them. I think something is happening in the top half, but the bottom needs more working.

I will leave you with some pictures of Johnny and Baby and I will get to making.