Stasis to Radiance: April Celebrations at Feral Mom

Tania Pryputniewicz
Photo Patrick Lizza

Occidental Center for the Arts November Butterfly Poetry/Movie/Art Launch Success

What a busy month—crowned by a beautiful weekend in Sonoma County at Occidental Center for the Arts. I’ll be posting video footage from the event later when we edit it (thanks to Peter Pryputniewicz and Patrick Lizza on camera), but for now, I wanted to share this photo taken by the banks of Austin Creek in the green heart of Russian River land. Patrick and my poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie helped me overcome some stage fright. Though the takes of the title poem, November Butterfly, were trumped by nature’s rushing water, reciting the poem so many times for the camera made for a no-nerves live performance in front of my home crowd (with my father on piano). I feel the photo captures my love for words and the river.

Photo Robyn Beattie
Cover Design Don Mitchell

Tweetspeak Poetry Reviews November Butterfly

I came home to San Diego to a new review of November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014) by Glynn Young (thank you Tweetspeak!). Young chose to focus on the poem, Mordred’s Dream, a Refusal from the Camelot section of the book:

In the poem, Mordred is refusing his mother’s demand that he betray Arthur. But the fact that the title indicates this is a dream, and the subtitle “A Refusal” doesn’t preclude a later acceptance, moves the figure of Mordred into a different place. He knows what she is asking is a terrible wrong, even if it is “only” a dream. –Glynn Young, Poets and Poems: Tania Pryputniewicz and November Butterfly, Tweetspeak Poetry

You can read rest of review here: Poetry From Poets and Poems: Tania Pryputniewicz and November Butterfly. Tweetspeak offers a rich newsletter, ongoing poetry prompts, and a diverse and lively comment community should you be looking for conversation and inspiration. Tweetspeak is looking for poems about blue jeans...read about it here, post your poem in their comments: Show Us Your (Poetry) Jeans.

Tarot Writing Class Forming: Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Hanged One to Star

We just finished a rich and fertile trek through Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Lovers to Strength, focusing on Arcanum VI to Arcanum XI. Join me May 18 for the next Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot Writing course, Stasis to Radiance: Hanged One to Star (Arcanum XII to Arcanum XVII). We spend one week on each Major, writing to our associations and considering the interpretations of a variety of Tarot scholars. We journal our way closer to a lived understanding of the cards, sometimes writing essays, poetry, or reveries of unnamed form. Our new class is taking shape as we speak; join us online. To sign up, visit Story Circle Network: Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Hanged One to Star.

Liz Brennan and Tania Pryputniewicz

Call for Atlas of Goodbyes at Perhaps, Maybe

Liz Brennan is looking for prose poem submissions for her Atlas of Goodbye Series. Here’s a link to the first one she wrote, Atlas of Goodbye #1, which begins:

"Perhaps I feel your absence today in a loosening lull in the rain after a clap of thunder shakes the upper windows..."

And a link to the one I wrote, starring, at his request, my husband: Atlas of Goodbye #2, which begins:

"Perhaps I feel your absence more keenly beside you four months before we marry in February chill of river house..."

And a link to one by Tess P., Atlas of Goodbyes #3:

"Perhaps it is a small gesture that we practice saying goodbye to you in this way--you are everywhere: postcards, baseball hats, sweatshirts, tote bags, water bottles, coffee cups, Christmas cards and so on..."

Please do write and send one in to Liz!

Sculpture Sandy Frank
Poem by Tania Pryputniewicz

Poetry Sculpture: Sandy Frank’s work at the Annual California Clay Competition, Davis

Sculpture by Sandy Frank will be featured in a show at Davis, California this coming weekend, May 1-3,  for the 26 Annual California Clay Competition Exhibit. Reception: Friday, May 1st, 7-9 p.m. Visit The Artery’s website for more details.

Sculpture by Frank includes this one featuring the poem Someone,  published in November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, 2014).

If in Davis, stop in and support her work. Here’s a link to my web page where you’ll find notes about our process of sculpture/poetry collaboration and a few more photos of Sandy's poetry sculptures, including one using the words from Selke and Seer sections of the poem A Maritime Trilogy, also published in November Butterfly: Collaborations for Bread. 

Extract(s) selects three Poems from November Butterfly:

Veil, Veil II and Transport will appear at Extract(s) later in May; I will post a link as soon as it goes live. May 11 update: Poems live: Guinevere reflects on her abduction, Guinevere to Lancelot, and Lancelot Grieves in Veil, Veil II and Transport.

Edith O'Nuallain

Mother Writer Mentor

New post is up by Edith O’ Nuallain, across the sea from her home in Ireland; her post is all about Mining the Unbliss of Motherhood and the realities of forging a writer’s identity while raising children. 

Edith writes: "I used to imagine that all my favourite female saints and mystics, those dead fore-sisters from the paeans of my Catholic childhood were rushing past me, brushing my lips, my cheeks, my hair with the vestiges of their silent presence. Then I felt as if I was flying, soaring through the skies of my imagined paradise..." 

Read rest of her post here: Mining the Unbliss of Motherhood and do stop and leave her a comment, or write us your own guest post and let us know how you stay sane, thrive, love your children, and love your way to your own writing.

Phoenix Eggs, Beginning Blogging and The Wheel of Tarot's Archetypal Selves

Phoenix Egg Doodle

I’m always looking for ways to grow as a blogger, which in addition to my passion for the form, is the main reason I teach blogging.

To that end, I’ve joined the Tracking Wonder #Quest2015, a hands-on virtual journey structured so creatives meet online in public and private forums under the stewardship of Jeffrey Davis to consider prompts by twelve visionaries during the month of December.  Quest questions urge us to ruminate intensely on goals, intentions, hidden saboteurs, and life-dreams in order to manifest a potent 2015. Many of us are writing and posting our answers to our blogs. And doodling! Phoenix Egg 3 is part of a new habit I've committed to daily: a morning color doodle meditation focused on Sacred Joy (I'm posting to a board on Pinterest)...thanks to one of the prompts I'll describe below. 

I joined #Quest2015 mid-stream, so expect me to still be considering some of December’s questions in the coming months. Here is a list to the three posts I've been able to formulate at Transformative Blogging; at each post's end, you’ll find links to the posts of fellow questers, many whom are formulating wildly fertile answers across mediums from visual art to music to quilting to written and recorded reverie:

Vine O Joy Doodle

On Stopping: Stopping to Start, based on the following prompt: We often think too much about adding new things, when the source of a lot of our growth is eliminating old things. What do you need to STOP doing in 2015? And what do you need to do to make that STOPPING more than an intention?—Charlie Gilkey of Productive Flourishing and best-selling author of The Small Business Life Cycle.

On our Dark Side: Blogging and The Shadow Self, based on the following prompt: Which emotions do you feel most guilty about having? Afraid that others might find out? How could you spend this year trying to be open to the emotional window that allows you to be courageous? It rarely feels good right before we do something courageous, but these moments are the most meaningful and treasured. Todd Kashdan (author of The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why being your whole self – not just your good self – drives success and fulfillment(Hudson Street Press) with Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener as well as Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life (Harper Collins).

Photo by Robyn Beattie

On Sacred Joy: Phoenix Eggs in the House of My Father, based on the following prompt: How could you make moments of joy a sacred priority in 2015?
What forms will such moments take?
Doodle, draw, photograph, or write your way into these questions.. –Sunni Brown of the TED Talk “Doodlers Unite!” and leader of The Doodle Revolution – a global campaign for visual literacy and also the name of her new book. Sunni is also the author of Gamestorming.

I also couldn't refrain from posting this new beautiful image by Robyn Beattie, my poetry movie collaborator, that she sent me after reading that post. To me, this image looks like a liquid rendition of the inside of a phoenix egg. The art braid continues....

November Butterfly Update:

Photo Robyn Beattie, Cover Design Don Mitchell

I have taken a poetry prompt break to play on #Quest 2015, but you can find links to all eleven of the prompts written for the iconic women in section one of November Butterfly (just released this November, 2014, by Saddle Road Press) here under my About page. I will resume writing prompts in the new year.

And please do continue to check my Events page for updates and information about the writing workshops and readings I’ll be doing on book tour in 2015 in support of this first poetry book. We are working on an event in March 2015 for which we show a handful of our poetry movies at the invitation of Sonoma County’s Occidental Center for the Arts in Northern California. Robyn Beattie and I will be inviting the artists featured in the poetry movies to bring their corresponding physical artworks to the event that night to display. It should be an amazing celebration of collaboration. As I mentioned earlier, check my Events page to stay in touch or to suggest venues. I’d love to hear from you.

January Classes

Photo Robyn Beattie

Beginning Blogging in person through San Diego Writers, Ink

I am excited to be offering an ongoing series--Beginning to Advanced Blogging--over the course of the year in 2015 (in six week installments); should you sign up, know this is a marvelous way to be part of an ongoing trajectory towards your blogging goals for inspiration, support, and new ideas over the course of 2015.

This first course in January offers beginning bloggers the chance to create material to launch a blog or to recalibrate an existing blog through completing a series of writing exercises and inventories. We look at blog platforms and blog technique; we will also preview the Web for examples. We brainstorm together, create content, discuss image use, and refer to a checklist towards blog launch. Students will emerge with sample posts and a map in hand for how to proceed in the future.

Course runs Tuesday nights, 6:30-8:30 p.m. January 13-February 17. Cost is $180 for members of SDWI and $210 for non-members. No prior blogging experience necessary.

For full course description and to sign up, visit Beginning Blogging

 

Luna on the Wheel

Wheel of Archetypal Selves: Fool to Hierophant

This is online class is offered through Story Circle Network. Using the Major Arcana as a focal point, we make connections to the archetypes and our past and current experiences. In turn, we mine these writings and others inspired by the imagery of the Tarot to help revise existing writing projects or inspire new ones.

We will focus, one card per week, on the first six cards that make up the Major Arcana progression (from the Fool to the Hierophant), connecting our own past experiences to aspects of each archetype as well as answering weekly questions based on definitions assigned the cards by Tarot scholars. We will also read excerpts of published work based on the Tarot. Students will keep a Tarot Journal for the duration of the course, noting any experiential synchronicities occurring during the week in relation to the cards under study.

Course runs January 12-February 23, 2015. Cost is $192 for Story Circle Network Members and $240 for non-members. All level of writer welcome; no prior experience working with the Tarot necessary.

For full course description and to sign up: Wheel of Archetypal Selves

T's sand dollars

New Perhaps, Maybe with Liz Brennan: Evolution

Liz and I continue to play at Perhaps, Maybe with prose poetry. Perhaps this will be the year you write her a Perhaps of your own, or take her up an responding with a Maybe to her Perhaps--do contact her if you’d like to play; she is always looking for collaborators. Here is a teaser from each paragraph of our latest collaboration:

Perhaps the bicycle, perched in evolution between horse and car, allows a girl the modest means to ride…

Maybe the bicycle wheels, larger than dinnerplates, spin off wordlessly into the air as they continue to evolve…

Read the rest of Evolution here.

I hope this time of year affords you some moments of peace, stillness, and joy with the family of your choosing...I am feeling blessed and grateful to have so many portals of communication across which to play. Bless you for listening and for engaging with me here at Feral Mom, Feral Writer in 2014.