For today’s Poetics prompt, Sarah invites us to verb animals and use those verbs or verb phrases—like “horsing around” or “pigging out” or our own inventions like “eagle over” or “ant the whole hill”—in our poem.
This Animal Kingdom
He is always sharking— dead-eyed stare, open mouth full of sharpness always moving—prowling for the next morsel to come too close
Me, I emu Unable to fly, I present a feathery girth over questionably designed legs with a deadly kick primed if he gets too close.
In the rare moments he’s not sharking, he squirrels—all his pouches full of nuts and seeds (mostly mine and the morsels’ he sharks)— but he squirrels lazily: I’ll find his burrow
When I don’t emu, I hornbill I spread my striking wingspan, and my caw, generated in my bulbous head, carries elation under the thick canopy, then using my curved, sharp beak I crack the nuts from his hollow.
Me, I Emu by Maria L. Berg 2023
Today’s images
Inspired by today’s poetics prompt, I thought it would be fun to use some animal filters with my new light-wrapped forms in the mirrorworld, to see if I could make them verb. I really enjoyed searching through my filters and picking out all the different animals I’ve created filters of over the years. The shark and the emu filters pictured above, I created to use with the fireworks last Fourth of July.
Finding the contradictory nature in today’s abstract nouns was an interesting and challenging exercise. Many would say that zeal and zealousness have the same meaning, however, zeal is a feeling and zealousness is being full of or characterized by that feeling.
I thought writer Harvey Ardman’s answer to the question of how zeal and zealousness differ came closest to what I was thinking when he wrote on quora.com:
“Zeal” means having a lot of energy or enthusiasm for a cause or a task.
“Zealousness” has the same meaning, but with an additional connotation of obsession.
Harvey Ardman
I thought it was interesting that last year I wrote about zealousness as something positive and motivational, but this year because I was looking at zeal and zealousness as contradictory, zealousness took on a negative meaning to me.
This got me thinking about a third continuum of abstract nouns which is bias. During my studies of contradictory abstract nouns, I’ve come to the conclusion that contradictory abstract nouns are the same noun defined along a continuum of perceptual bias. So for today’s graph of all of the contradictory abstract nouns I explored this month, I added a third dimension, of positive or negative bias. Here’s my three-dimensional mapping of the contradictory abstract nouns along the axes of fear, control, and bias:
Three Dimensions of Abstract Nouns by Maria L. Berg 2023Positive Bias by Maria L. Berg 2023
Today’s Images
To find the zeal in zealousness and zealousness in zeal, I played with the same painting with a flashlight technique I used last year. I set up the tri-pod in the mirrorworld, and used a Kandinsky-inspired sharpie drawing on clear plastic filter. Using the timer, and trying different shutter speeds, I zealously attempted to write a Z and an M. My zeal waned when I got hungry.
Today’s prompt is to to “write a palinode – a poem in which you retract a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem. For example, you might pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it. This could be an interesting way to start working on a series of related poems. Alternatively, you could play around with the idea of a palinode by writing a poem in which the speaker says something like “I take it back” or otherwise abandons a prior position within the single poem.”
Last year zealousness was positive. It was active and diligent, hard to discern from zeal. But today it’s a negative trait: it’s too much, excessive, obsessive; it’s pushy, single-minded and won’t listen; it is so devoted and convicted that it is a one way street to aggression and violence.
Last year zealousness was passionate and full of intense emotion, but this year that emotion has changed: from pleasure to addiction; from motivation to necessity at all cost; from love to hate. And that zealousness leaves a hole, a hunger, a vicious circular definition like a spinning magnet attracted and repulsed, and attracted an repulsed until the string breaks.
Last year zealousness was enthusiasm, a feeling of excitement for what’s to come. But today it’s contradictory, line-crossed to the fanatic, past the point of discovery and surprise, to the point of know it all and everyone else is wrong, and nothing will be the same, and something must be done because no one is listening and they all must see because zealousness is now all consuming, and the zeal is waning from hunger.
I still absolutely love the image I made for yearning last year. Much of my current yearning—strong, persistent craving or desire accompanied by tenderness or sadness for something unattainable or distant—to create thought-provoking images that express the contradictory nature of life, began last year during the A to Z challenge with my study of abstract nouns.
Yield can have a concrete meaning: the quantity or amount yielded. A quantity of goods can be counted, touched, measured, but yield has many other meanings: to give up, as to superior power; to give up or surrender (oneself); to give as due or required; to cause; give rise to. With the opposite meanings of “to give up” and “give rise to” also makes yield a janus word.
In The Mind at Mischief, Sadler uses yield in defining security:
Security is the emotion we feel when we yield to our inherent gregarious instinct. Man is naturally a herd animal. He feels safer when he is one of a crowd of his own fellows. This emotion of security is the well-spring of the impulse of self-preservation, and when indulged, yields that feeling of safety which we experience as the result of companionship with those of our kind.
William S. Sadler, M.D.
Notice that the feeling of safety is a yield of the emotion of security. In this way yield is an abstract noun. Yield is contradictory to yearning in that a yield is something in hand, a result, where yearning is something distant, wanting something that may be unattainable.
Today’s Images
For today’s images I created a second reflection ball cage, something I have been yearning to do, but thought I needed more pool noodles. Instead I used an old one that had curved into a U and joined it with a couple broken pieces to close the cage. Then I used my wonder and wisdom transparencies behind my cut-shape filters. What a yield. It really feels like painting with light.
Today’s prompt is to write a two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal. At some point in the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person. Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue.
I. I toil, yearning to live off the harvest. I turn the compost, and dig as deep as I can, loosening the soil for the roots of future plants. Every year my hopes soar, certain that this year will be different: that I’ve put in more effort than the year before; that this variety will be heartier than the last; that the birds and insects and weather will work with me not against me this year I yearn for spirals of pole beans reaching up to tall bright-yellow sunflowers, bowing their big heads over plump orange pumpkins, growing big enough to carve scary monster faces set to glow on long, dark, chilly autumn nights, or mashed into a vibrant pie filling to celebrate a day of thanks for a bountiful harvest.
II. And the sprouts pop through green against the dark earth, a bountiful yield in every row and I patiently wait for them to grow, to flower, to fruit but the sun beats down, and the leaves are nibbled, weeds encroach and choke and they refuse to grow as if to say, We would rather die than nourish you. There is nothing you can do to make us happy. But with a creator’s love, I dress the small, damaged leaves of the surviving, kale, lettuce, and chard and savor every bite of my luxurious yield while imagining what I will do differently next year.
Xanadu Satellites in Xylography by Maria L. Berg 2023
Xanadu & Xylography
Last year I had a lot of fun with Xanadu, the mythical paradise from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan, and the muse’s roller-rink in the Olivia Newton John movie. I made a rollerskate filter and attempted a shape poem in the shape of a rollerskater. Today and tomorrow, with this wonderful faux-summer weather and my family coming out to enjoy it, this is my Xanadu, right here where I am. My “stately pleasure-dome” with an ice-cold lake and an awe-inspiring view of Mt. Rainier. I’m so glad I mowed yesterday. So how could xylography be a contradiction to an imagined paradise like Xanadu?
How is xylography even an abstract noun? Xylography is the art of making woodcuts or wood engravings; the art, craft, or process of printing from wooden blocks. You may say, I know what a wood block is: I can touch it, I can see it, I can smell it. Yes, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that xylography is an abstract noun (like Xanadu), but right there in the definition it says it is an art. And what is art? There we have the abstract nature of xylography.
Xylography has a permanence. The image carved into the wood, the relief image left on the surface, can be painted or inked and printed again and again. Xanadu is impermanent, a fantasy, always changing.
Today’s Images
To find the xylography in Xanadu and the Xanadu in Xylography, I found some laser-cut wooden puzzle pieces I designed when we were just starting Artifact Puzzles, and tested one of my puzzles on a thinner wood.
Xylography in Xanadu or Moonman by Maria L. Berg 2023
Encyclopedia.com says wonder is “a state of mind excited by the perception of novelty or of something strange or not well understood. Both plato and aristotle speak of wonder as the point of origin for philosophy. In the Theaetetus, Socrates is recorded as saying, “Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.” The word philosophy means the love of wisdom, so one would think that wonder is the beginning of wisdom, so how can they be contradictory?
Wisdom is knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight. Wonder is something strange and surprising that causes one to be amazed, doubt, or ponder; a cause of surprise, astonishment, or admiration. The contradiction of wisdom and wonder is that wisdom is knowledge of what is true and right and wonder includes doubt. Wisdom is the removal of doubt.
Today’s Images
I had a strip of transparency paper left over from the transparencies I printed yesterday, and I thought it would be wise not to waste it. I wondered what it would look like if I drew on the printable transparency paper with sharpies, so I drew designs similar to previous filters I made inspired by Kandinsky and Mondrian, and added the morse code dots and lines for “wisdom” or “wonder” then took pictures of my floating studio. Then I put one of my earlier Kandinsky-inspired plastic filters under a brush shape cut filter. I’m really enjoying how the sharpie-drawn colors are interacting with the pool noodles.
Today’s prompt is a title prompt “The (animal or plant) of (abstract noun).” The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.
Today’s prompt is to write an anapodoton poem. “An anapodoton is an unfinished phrase that a person can fill in the blanks, phrases like “When in Rome,” “If life gives you lemons,” “Speak of the devil,” and “Where there is a will.” For many (if not all) of these, you probably filled in the second half of the phrase, because you know it so well.”
I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
Marcus Aurelius
Value & Vanity
I found the contradiction of value and vanity in the definition of vanity itself: excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc.; lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness. Vanity is a lack of value, but what is value? When I talked about value last year, I talked about both relative worth which is value in outer control and its meaning as aspects of art and music. Then in August, I discovered Calvino’s Memos and his values of literature (Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity, and Consistency), with value meaning: something (as a principal or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable, which would be value in inner control. So does intrinsic value exist, or is it always relative worth? This is a question that intrigues me.
In The Mind at Mischief, Sadler sorts vanity and pride by gender:
5. Vanity—Vanity grows out of the primary emotions of elation and sex, plus those secondary feelings we commonly include in the term pride. We are vain because we enjoy the emotions of elation associated with the instinct of self-assertion, and vanity is peculiarly associated with the sex-instinct in the female. In fact, in a way we might say that vanity is peculiar to the human female, tho men may share this emotion to a lesser degree. Vanity also sometimes takes on the nature of self-directed pity, sympathy, and love; and when thus exercised it may become a source of much sorrow before we awaken to discover how much unhappiness can be generated by self-pity and overmuch introspection. The simple vanity of the average woman is certainly harmless and altogether wholesome as a promoter of happiness.
6. Pride—Pride is built upon the primary instinct foundation of elation and hoarding, plus the psychic state of egotism. We are proud of and enjoy the elation associated with self-assertion. We are proud of our ability to accumulate, to hoard, and are conscious of the poise and power that come with possession. This element of pride is more distinctly a male emotion as contrasted with the vanity of the female. It has more to do with the masculine egotism, self-confidence, courage, and chivalry that go with the male consciousness of superior physical power and endurance. We must not confuse the impulse of pride with normal and legitimate self-confidence—a sort of self-regarding sentiment. Again, we must not overlook the fact that pride of a certain sort may add much to the satisfaction of living; while if our ego becomes too highly exalted, we may find ourselves entangled in an unfortunate maze of psychic difficulties and social rebuffs that will effectively destroy our peace of mind and undermine our happiness.
William S. Sadler, M.D.
Though I disagree, and find the generalized gender ideas dated (the text is from 1929), I still find the ideas of vanity and pride interesting. Here’s a woman’s point of view on the difference between vanity and pride:
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.
Jane Austen
Today’s Images
When I first wrote about Calvino’s values, I had just come up with the idea to sew fabric sleeves for my pool-noodle floating studio. Today, the lake is up, the sun is out, and I pulled out the fabric-covered pool noodles and floating reflection balls. To find the vanity in value and the value in vanity, I looked past the vanity of appearance and thought about the vanity of qualities, abilities, and achievements. I selected images from this month’s posts to make printed transparencies to bring pattern and color to my floating studio. I ended my photo shoot by trying a Kandinsky-inspired sharpie on clear plastic filter. I am so excited to try all the filters I made over the winter, with the floating studio. I had so much fun today (except for the splinter in my big toe).
Today’s prompt is to “write a portrait poem that focuses on or plays with the meaning of the subject’s name. This could be a self-portrait, a portrait of a family member or close friend, or even a portrait of a famous or historical person.”
An urge can come from without—an act of urging; impelling action, influence, or force—or within—an involuntary, natural, or instinctive impulse. An urge may come from within but then one may urge another to act on one’s urge. I’m not sure how I’m going to place urge on my chart. I found this interesting statement about “urge” in The Mind at Mischief:
Disgust is the emotion associated with the instinct of repulsion and is aroused by bad tastes and smells. It seems to be especially stimulated by the sight of slimy creatures such as snakes and lizards. It no doubt lies at the bottom of the development of the esthetic taste in primitive man, and unquestionably constitutes the inherent urge which propels modern civilized peoples along those lines which lead them to look for the beautiful.
William S. Sadler, M.D.
Use is harder to define. Use means employment, employment means use. I got really excited finding these circular definitions last year until I realized they were usually an internet dictionary short-cut and I could find definitions in my physical dictionary. So I looked up “use” in my trusty, red Merriam Webster’s Collegiate: Tenth Edition and found: the act or practice of employing something: Employment. So I looked up “employment” and got . . . You guessed it! Use, purpose. At least we extended the meaning to purpose, but that’s not easily defined either: purpose, noun, something set up as an object or end to be attained. I like purpose’s definition as a verb: to propose as an aim to oneself (There you go, clear as mud). But that’s not what use means, is it? We all know what use means: we use stuff, we use and are used by others—doesn’t sound great, but it happens. So why is it so hard to define?
Looking up “the psychology of use” online led me to the works of psychologist Alfred Adler. “Psychology of use was Adler’s view that behavior is understood in terms of the use the person puts in. This is not necessarily the traits in which the individual is assumed to have, but the way they make use of their opportunities and capacities.” ~AdlerPedia However, I haven’t found Adler talking about the psychology of use in his texts yet. I found copies of Understanding Human Nature and The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology and the only mentions of Use I found so far were in the Concluding Remarks of a chapter on Child Psychology and Neurosis. I do like the Realities in (e).
The foremost task in the study of the psychic life is to reckon with the tentative attempts and exertions of strength, growing out of the constitutionally given powers and the initial and subsequently well- tested efforts for utilizing the environment. V, Each psychic phenomenon must therefore be interpreted as a partial manifestation of an integrated life– plan. All explanatory attempts that refuse to follow this course and, instead, attempt to penetrate into the child’s psychic life, to analyse the manifestation itself and not its synthesis, must be regarded as unsuccessful. For the facts ” of the child’s psyche are not to be taken as finished products but rather as preparatory movements in the direction of a goal. VI, According to this view nothing consequently takes place without subserving some tendency. We shall therefore attempt at this point to call attention to the following guiding principles which we consider the most important. Realities. — {a) The development of a capability for attaining superiority. {b) Coping with the environment. (c) The feeling that the world is hostile. The amassing of knowledge and piling up of achievements. (e) Use made of love and obedience, hatred and defiance, of community feeling and the lust for power.
Imaginary. — (f) Development of the As-If (phantasy, symbolic successes). (g) Use made of weakness. (h) Procrastination in making decisions. Search for protection
Alfred Adler
Today’s Images
This morning when I thought of “urge,” I thought of the pull I feel to create. The want and have to that gets me out of bed to make new filters to express new pairs of contradictory nouns in new ways in the mirrorworld. When I thought about “use,” I thought of tools, especially my favorite tool, my camera. So I sat down to cut out a “camera” shape, thinking I would put my circular arrows transparency in it, but as I drew, I took off the lens cap. In the lens cap I not only saw the circles within circles of the lens, but colors and shapes from the windows behind me.
To find the urge in use and the use in urge, I used sharpies to draw what I saw in my lens onto a clear plastic filter, then turned off the blue curtain lights and added the multi-color string lights to the mirrorworld.
Today’s prompt is to read e e cummings’ poem [somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond]. Then to write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.
At dVerse the Poetics prompt is music. Specifically, “write a poem about music in any form. You can mention music fleetingly or write a poem dedicated to music. BUT please include any two titles from the following list. These are all taken from Linda Perry’s albums.”
Edge Of Your Atmosphere
Sunset Strip
Life Despite God
Sunny April Afternoon
Bang The Drum
Life in a Bottle
Fruitloop Daydream
Tiny Box Of Lies
Knock Me Out
I Am My Father’s Daughter
Don’t Touch Me While I Am Sleeping
Secret Lover
Looking at all my prompts, I chose “Sunny April Afternoon,” because it’s afternoon in April and the sun came out for a moment, and “Don’t Touch Me While I’m Sleeping” because it will work well with the NaPoWriMo requirement for a line break in an unusual place. I guess I chose to write a reality poem.
The Poem
instruments others use, urged further ~after e.e. cummings
instruments others use, urged further than I, your hands form other chords stretch to different notes that resonate in me, vibrating deeper because they are outside my range
your hum will misuse me though I have plugged my ears like wine bottles you uncork each one with a thunk in a Sunny April Afternoon trill (hearing the daffodil open) of dark-eyed juncos
Only the user perceives a frequency equivalent to your creative urge: whose vibration moves me to refuse interruption. Don’t Touch Me While I Am Sleeping, I dream your symphony
(I want to make sure to write it when I wake and reuse your hand patterns to find how we resonate in the frequency of us, a melody and harmony of waiting) so clear and sweet and still open to the street
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Thrill & Tiredness
Yesterday I felt a bit of a thrill—a sudden wave of keen emotion or excitement—while cutting out and arranging all of the photographs I’ve created and chosen to post this month. I’ve felt a tiredness—a state of wishing for sleep or rest, a heavy weariness—most of this month, due to frustration from physical injury and ailment, but yesterday, seeing all that I’ve accomplished despite the pain, gave me a thrill.
In The Mind at Mischief, Doctor Sadler sees both Thrill and Tiredness in terms of fear:
“In adult life we sometimes become reckless in the presence of fear. We get a sort of thrill, a “kick,” out of daring adventure. We deliberately court danger in order to get the thrill that is born of recklessness, to enjoy the fascination of daring to defy danger. We should remember that fear is not necessarily abnormal. It is only when it becomes an obsession that it is able to harass us and interfere with health and happiness.”
“When the sympathetic nervous system has learned to short-circuit this affair, and, as the result of chronic worry, to produce—on its own initiative and quite independent of any participation of the adrenal secretion—these psychic and physical manifestations of fear, it is little wonder that it acquires the trick of bringing on this spontaneous, ever-present, and distressful fatigue. It seems to say to itself: “Since the end-product of all this business is fatigue and rest, since all this false alarm I am turning in has no other objective than to wear the patient out and bring on fatigue, I will cut the whole process short and give him an ever-present tired-out feeling. Rest is what he wants. The purpose of this whole performance is to escape from reality, to get out of doing things. Then why should I produce these frequent upheavals involving rapid breathing, thumping heart, increased blood pressure, dizziness, nausea?” And so the chronic state of fear comes to be associated with the chronic state of fatigue. Biologically, the end-result of all fear phenomena would be physical fatigue; therefore, in the modern nervous counter-part of primitive forest experience, we indulge in psychic fear and immediately experience nervous fatigue, a fatigue which is so wonderfully perpetrated as to possess all the earmarks of genuine physical tiredness.”
William S. Sadler, M.D.
So thrill is a contradiction of tiredness in that thrill is a positive, enjoyable reaction to an instance of fear, where tiredness is a negative reaction to chronic fear.
Today’s Images
While looking for a glue-stick yesterday, I happened upon my glitter collection and some clear-drying “tacky glue.” I’ve tried glitter on clear plastic before when creating a snow globe effect with my fish-eye lens. Today I thought it would be thrilling to make “thrill” and “tire” in Morse Code with glue and different gauges of glitter, and see what kinds of textures it creates. Though the glue and glitter only acts to block the light, creating a resist, the changes in thickness due to the glue created a vispo symbolic language effect I enjoyed.
Here we see tiredness. I do not recommend it. To begin witH
Heavy, droopy, glazed over eyes don't take in all that mucH
Haggard, slovenly, neglected humans aren't a pleasant toucH
Having gone mushy and pokey at the same time, always flincH
HOLLOWLY NOT KNOWING WHAT STARTLED AND WITHOUT ENOUGH OOMPH
Held to get reinspired. Tiredness needs a thrill in a pincH
Hope the sky will fall in or the floor will fall out. PlusH
Harm-free comfort holes could give tiredness positive blusH
Howling wild fear-facing is rough stuff and draining enougH
I added this week’s contradictory nouns to my chart of fear and control. It now looks like this:
Then I printed and cut out all of the images I have posted so far this month and used the chart to place them into a collage:
My Images on the Axes of Fear and Control Maria L. Berg 2023
Today’s Images
For today’s images I continued yesterday’s work with Morse Code, making a dot and line patterns of “fear” and “control.” I started by putting the dots and lines in a “house” shape. I had the interesting experience of seeing the shape as grave stones when fear was in the center, and graven tablets when control was in the center. Then the shape filter tore and became a different shape without meaning, and I combined the fear and control filters. I used other shape filters, enjoying the effect of a tiny brad movable line filter.
Today’s prompt is to write a poem that has multiple numbered sections. Attempt to have each section be in dialogue with the others, like a song where a different person sings each verse, giving a different point of view. Set the poem in a specific place that you used to spend a lot of time in, but don’t spend time in anymore.
Since I’m attempting to catch up on the Nonce Scavenger Hunt, the prompts inspired me to try an “Inside Out” and several instances of “The Mouse.”
The Poem
The Ravine
It’s steep. It’s far. It’s slick. It’s rotting. It’s dirty. I could slip and fall on a rock, break my leg, my arm, or my head. If a tree falls in the forest, it could hit me.
I hurry down the steep hillside. Halfway down there are mushrooms and I squish a slug. As I near, I hear the creek rushing over rocks. I can’t wait to cool where it pools.
The only way across is over a nurse log. Who knows when the giant tree fell? I grasp at every limb I can. My gut churns because I’m sure I’m going to fall.
I imagine dinosaur paths that I’m playing in brontosaurus stomping grounds that if I follow the creek the ravine goes on forever, but I will stay close.
It’s where the deer and thieves arrive and go unseen where they left our pennies after our little hearts and dreams shattered like the deer eating every one of Mom’s roses
fear fear
fear fear fighter, flighter life’s preservation drops blinders
fear fear beating harder pulsing alarm of disaster
fear fear gasping, shaking never enough pure oxygen
fear fear muscles tensing what objects offer weaponry?
fear fear darkened shadows feeling lingers, nothing appears
fear fear steeper faster spreading over more stimuli
fear fear growing, taking like ravine pathways eroding
Experience Writing 