Photo Poem Montage for Amelia Earhart live

Amelia (both the poem, and the photo poem montage) in honor of Amelia Earhart, is up at V’s place, a new website hosted by E. Victoria Flynn. (updated May 2014: is up now at YouTube).

I met Victoria several years ago over at She Writes when I joined the invaluable writing thread she hosts at She Writes, titled Mother Writer!, and conversely, I invited Victoria to put up our very first guest post at Mother, Writer, Mentor: A Straw Hat for Mama; I hope you’ll stop by and give her a read and a comment if you are in the mood.

To create the photo poem montage Amelia, I had the continued luxury of working with the beautiful photos of Robyn Beattie. How to convey an expansive sky, but without using sky photos per se? How to imply the body but not use the human body? We are up to our usual tricks in this montage, abalone sky, metal sculpture for body, the work of several Sonoma County artists slipped in too: Loreen Barry (butterfly) and Monty Monty (look for his tiny dark bronze-colored airplane, as well as the shadow of one of his other sculptures across a wall in muted beige tones). I may be somewhat tethered to the domestic monastery, but Robyn—her eyes do the ferreting when I can’t during these projects.

New to this collaboration: original guitar music by Michael Greenberg, who I have to thank here for recording the tracks for She Dressed in a Hurry (for Lady Di) and Nefertiti on the Astral as well as a number of tracks for upcoming photo montages in the works. Not only did we pull Michael into our creative process with his original guitar score, but his wife (our friendship goes back to high school), as my voice was shot the day we went to record. Lori O'Hara , a talented writer and blogger herself, stepped up to the plate and hence we have her dreamy, smooth voice reading the poem.

At one point in our process last year, a sensationalist article made it into Yahoo’s headlines reporting the possible discovery of Amelia Earhart’s remains on a South Pacific island, but when I “fell for it” and followed the link,  the article quickly degenerated into trivia:  were the remains in fact turtle parts, and what to make of the random make-up found nearby, raising questions concerning Earhart’s make-up product use…

I have little faith our Amelia would bring such vanities onto her airplane; she doesn’t strike me as the type, rugged beauty that she was. But Robyn and I both enjoyed the nod to the montage we were quietly, secretly making. Perhaps, more likely, Amelia would don a scarf…if you want a bit of the read deal, here’s her actual scarf (San Diego Air and Space Museum), though it’s a shame it isn’t gracing the neck of an aviatrix right now…

Photo Poem Montage She Dressed in a Hurry, for Lady Di Live at The Mom Egg

I’m really proud of this latest venture in technology (set to music--my father Stephen Pryputniewicz on piano, playing the music of Scriabin, and Robyn Beattie behind the lens for over 30 gorgeous photos). The poem, She Dressed in a Hurry, for Lady Di originally appeared at Salome Magazin. For text only visit:
http://www.salomemagazine.com/chamber.php?id=301

For the Photo Poem Montage, visit: the Mom Egg, where it is due to be posted on Mother's Day: http://www.themomegg.com/themomegg/Blog/Entries/2010/5/8_Guest_Blogger__Tania_Pryputniewicz.html

Our first recording attempt was conducted at my father’s house, where we spent half an hour moving the computer with an attached microphone we’d borrowed from my brother back and forth on a stool in the hallway…trying to get the right balance of piano to voice. Then we discovered we were picking up the hum of the heater in the hallway, and tried sticking the computer in the bathroom, closing the door, where the voice took on a sharp tile echo and Dad had to count seconds and guess when to start the piano to time it with the poetry. We had some eerie moments when the wire of the mic became somehow attenuated (overheated?) during the recording of a second poem (Nefertiti on the Astral) and in playback we heard a long drawn out garbled voice, as if we were channeling The Queen of Egypt direct. Once the hairs aligned in their usual horizontal positions along the backs of our necks and arms, we decided to call it a day and consider the recordings working drafts

Fortunately, during one of those fortuitous family, kids, and technology woe swapping lunch visits, my friend Lori offered her husband’s recording studio services, and with his excellent mixing skills, my brother’s help transferring the file to its final form for viewing, we came up with a much stronger version. I hope you enjoy this bouquet of sorts…for Mother’s Day, for mother’s everywhere.



Thanks to The Mom Egg for hosting the montage, Salome Magazine for originally publishing the text of the poem, and Michael and Lori for the studio opportunity. And of course, my co-collaborators Stephen Pryputniewicz and Robyn Beattie (http://www.robynbeattie.com).