“Art encompasses the satisfaction of words well used.

Poetry and rhetoric and just plain stories are definitely part of our artistic heritage.

Most of life cannot be reduced to watertight propositions or exhaustively described.

Our finitude guarantees error, whether or not we realize our mistakes.

But from Homer onwards, words carry and describe our deep engagement with reality and our deep longing to transcend our daily contexts.”

Writers?  You may start your typewriters/laptops and create some art!

Thanks Donald

This past Saturday at the VAF Gathering in Minneapolis, Amy Wevodau read her poetry with Kyle Gregory improvising a response to the reading on the trumpet. Well, they did something interesting: they reversed roles. Kyle played while Amy improvised. In fact, taking Amy’s lead, we all improvised. Here are a few samples of what was written by a group of mostly non-writers during the four or five minutes that Kyle blasted away on his trumpet. All in all, it was a pretty inspiring collaboration. See if you can get a feel for what the music sounded like by identifying themes in the writing…

Note to participants: If I couldn’t read what you wrote because you wrote in crayon or if what you wrote was three pages long then it didn’t make it on this list. Sorry. I tried to be faithful to what I saw on paper, but if I misread something, please let me know.

Untitled
by Brett Knutson
twilight
in this
zone

Wake Up!

I can’t wake up.
Stop throwing rocks
at my window

let me sleep
let me be
you don’t know me

I’ll be watching you
play your city sounds
pissing under my
overpass

Shut the hell up
one eye open
I’ll watch you while I sleep

The Flight of the Chair
by Caleb Seeling
I wonder what Sasha is up to? Dishes piling, laundry folding, scrubbing ears, wiping bottoms, and water water water water and suds and slickly clean linoleum. Slick like that bastard who showed up at the door—who showed up at my door—with a small bleached paper cup of pills, who told me to calm down when I told him to get the Hell out.

I am calm. Sitting here. Not in my home—cottonwood sending its billowy seeds out searching for purchase.

Untitled
by Aaron Jameson
Bees hovering in the hoards over spilled milk. A noise! They stop! And then return in a rush. They chatter and talk in a fury like the floor of a stock exchange room. The hoard takes many shapes as they send messengers to and from to tell the other bees.

Life-Thought
by Larry Cole
Passion, Chaos, Inspiration
frustration, Intensity,
BREATH, Continue, Pace,
Thought, Think, Scream,
Cry, Pause, Pray, Extrapolate,
Contemplate, Wait—

Simmer, Distill, Refer,
Recall, Investigate, Seek,
Slow—BREATH—
Thought, Think,
Epiphany, Write, Document,
Share, Refine, Resolve,
hone, Scream

A Prayer
by Don Bartel
Twinkling, Twirling, Twirling
Spinning, Spinning, Spinning
Face turning upward
Frantic, Desperate, Calling Out, Crying

Celebrating, Laughing
Singing, Rejoicing
All is Well.

Untitled
by Ann Hoffmann
Idea!
It’s from God!
Pay Attention—Stay Awake
Record It
Weird!
Details
Hurry—or it will be gone
Abstract—Double Themes
Deeper than I thought
That’s What You See!

Mosquito
by Phil Cheney
Circling and threatening yet keeping its distance like a needy mosquito, the idea returned, a swipe of my hand and its gone only to return once my back was turned. Nothing I can do to hurry its advance yet quickly it returns as I try to ignore it. Suddenly it’s coming from all sides at once, sending me spinning in an attempt to fend it off. How long can I hold off the inevitable?

Messages
by Wes DeSpain
People trying frantically to communicate
First in rapid long diatribes, then in short one word jabs
Pausing only to take a breath
Sometimes two people talk at once
But the one who talks the loudest, longest or at the highest pitch
Wins…or does he?

Untitled
by Gary Bradley
Move me
Stop me
Can’t
See
The
in between
Too many sounds
Hear me
The one who
Owns the
Sounds

Untitled
by Kristina Boyer
It’s time, pray, don’t loose sight of Christ. Praise Him in the morning noon and night. Sleep and wake up—stay awake with your Lord.

It’s time, painful; but yes it’s time. Hope for heaven and you won’t despair.

Wake up it’s time! Wake up it’s time for joy! The day is a celebration that you’ve come upon. It’s time—time to rejoice—time to take a recess.