For the past few weeks, I’ve seriously curtailed my creative activity. Two of my last poems, Red Sailboat and Slo Shook, for me, represented a struggle. In my eyes, they lacked magic, passion, excitement. All the little ecstasies of spontaneous creation. Which I thought I might find again by doing something new and experimental with my poetry. Cluster Silence was an attempt to do just that. I was in a rut (a “creative crisis,” I called it in more dramatic moments). Yearning desperately for something different. But none of my poetic experiments delivered. So I pulled back. Figuring that when the time was right, I would know how to proceed.
And sure enough, in the wee hours of Monday morning, I awoke from a dream with a long-awaited solution: “I should collage!” As with all 3 a.m. ideas, I decided to give this one due consideration. It instantly felt PERFECT. So, after work on Monday, I went out and stocked up on supplies, including several entirely unrelated magazines, like National Geographic’s The Moon: Our Lunar Companion, Harper’s Bazaar, and Life’s Woodstock at 50. And here is the result–my first ever collage, titled “Very High Cosmos.” An observation: collaging isn’t very different from writing poetry at all (except for the x-acto knife, which I’ve got to practice with). And I’m already planning the next one. I think I’ve gotten my mojo back.
The Used Life 
26 responses to “Very High Cosmos”
Fun! Love it! Yea for mojo 🙃
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Thanks, Kris! I was surprised by how much fun I had creating this way. Looking forward to the next one! 🙂
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You might like icads, too. My mom does them a lot, and they’re wonderful. It stands for index-card-a-day. https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=Icad
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Oh, I like that idea! Thank you for the tip.
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I can’t wait to see what you create next! 😀
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Thank you so much! ☺️
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👍👍
Neil Scheinin
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Thanks, Neil 😎🙏🏻
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Sometimes, we feel, stuck, without inspiration, and, as we try our, hardest, to break away from that, we get stuck, even more, sometimes, it’s, just best, to relax, take it easy a bit, and, inspiration will, then, flow to you, freely…
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I agree. 🙂
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working in a free-form medium sounds a great way to get the creative juices flowing again. It looks fabulous.
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Thank you! It sure was… and I very much enjoyed being limited by the magazines I chose. Going in not knowing what I was going to make and slowly turning a bunch of disparage images into something unexpected. Such fun!
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Love it. Thank you
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Thanks, Masha!
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Superb!🙌
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Thank you! 🙂
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This is so creative! I love it! A couple of times I have experienced what appear to be collages forming themselves in my imagination, and I try to draw them (I do not draw well, which I think my unconscious uses to its advantage) on the page of sketch paper opposite the one I will write a narrative on. I agree about the need to listen to 3 am ideas. They seem even better after a strong cup of morning coffee.
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Thank you! I also tend to think in images–and am, sadly, unable to express them by drawing. But I am excited to have “discovered” collage as a medium. So much fun! Perhaps you might like it, also…should you feel the desire to experiment with it, that is.
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Maybe I will! Recently my writing prompts have consisted of drawings with different colored pens that have come to me on their own. I have really enjoyed what you have created.
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That sounds fun…and thank you. It is interesting…what I liked most about Very High Cosmos were the constraints of using only a small handful of magazines. I went in with no preconceived images and the scene sort of unfolded as I went along. As I work on my second one, now, I am finding I want to be guided by my own inner images, to recreate the scenes that come to my mind during meditation or in dreams.
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“An unrestrained imagination leads creativity into an abundance of fascination!!” U are one of the most Unique writers of this generation. Isn’t Stardust beautiful!? It holds so many secrets! 🌹
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Myth*.! Thank you for stopping by…and for the wonderful compliment. It is true, I am discovering, that exploring different veins for creative activity can be a real perspective-changer. Perhaps a bit of magic happens here. A sprinkle of stardust. ✨
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You’re so very welcome! I have missed your magical realm and creative splash upon the page! I just had to return to read your amazing work! Every vein is a maze of self, and a tether to everything awaiting your true arrival! Have fun discovering the never ending… 😀✌️
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Beautifully said. And thank you! Be well, friend! ☺️
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[…] haven’t experimented with collage work in awhile. Now that I am writing poetry rather comfortably and adventurously again, the urge […]
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[…] Some of you may remember my first experiment with collage art back in August, which resulted in Very High Cosmos (and consequently, kickstarted my creativity after a rather long and arduous dry spell). Among the […]
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