Lloyd Reynolds' Calligraphic Legacy

Lloyd Reynolds by Henk Pander, cover of Encore (Jan 1978)

About the time I began writing poetry in the late 1970s, I studied calligraphy with Sonoma State University French professor, Adele Friedman, who was a student and friend of Georgianna Greenwood; both were students of master calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds.

So depending upon how you want to count, I am within one or two degrees of separation from both Lloyd Reynolds and Steve Jobs.

At the time, I didn't have a typewriter, so I hand-calligraphed all my poems in a sort of Japanese "running grass" style Italic chancery cursive script for David Bromige's poetry classes. He seemed to like that—and told me it was a Reed College tradition: Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, Gary Snyder, etc., (all of whom I had met, so I was in good company.)

Calligraphy, a Greek word, literally means "beautiful writing." Beautiful, my handwriting was not—it was really awful and disjointed (I'm dyslexic). I hated writing, but after I studied calligraphy for a year, my handwriting dramatically improved. So did my brain. Calligraphy is much more than the sum of its parts: not only is it the art of fine penmanship, it is a state of being.

I never intended to become a scribe. Calligraphy and poetry honed my critical thinking skills and allowed me a visual workaround to combat the dyslexic roadblocks and labyrinths that had plagued me all my life. It was a major miracle that I even made it to junior college, let alone, earn a BA in Art—with a side order in poetry.

The introduction of Apple and Mac computers allowed me to write. The technology unlocked the doors of my convoluted brain. I taught myself how to write on an old Apple IIc with floppy disks. I began small, with poetry, and then branched out to write newspaper stories, and grants—which led to my life's work, teaching poetry and art to kids in the schools.

One of my first artist in residency jobs was at Healdsburg Elementary School teaching RSP/Learning Disabled kids how to write calligraphy (and poetry)—when all else had failed them. I redesigned my approach to the letters, and made up stories about them so the kids could really see the shapes as shapes—not letters. We flourished. Kids wrote poetry and their handwriting and reading skills improved.

During this time, The Calligraphy of Lloyd J. Reynolds was my Bible. I found a battered copy of the rare, o.o.p. book and it was the most money I'd ever spent on a used book.

Letters have fascinated me ever since I found their power and beauty when I was five years old.  I learned to read.  I was always drawing and letters were a favorite subject. —Lloyd Reynolds, Autobiographical Notes

When Lloyd Reynolds (1902-1978), a poet who taught at Reed College for 40 years (1949-1984—the year the Mac was invented), first discovered calligraphy in 1934, he said "The letters would not leave me alone…."

It was like "a bolt of lightning," he wrote: "It seemed perfectly obvious—the only logical approach is the historical one. Learn to cut reed and quill pens and write your way through the history of the alphabet!" Lloyd spent the next few years studying paleography. Connect the dots. (Autobiographical Notes).

[Lloyd] He respected students, and he added joy to the skill. Legibility, communication, clarity, and respect for others—all these were tenets in the religion of Lloyd Reynolds and calligraphy. You got as much from who he was as from what he was teaching, and that’s the talent of a great teacher. —Georgianna Greenwood (Reed, ’60)

In 1972, Lloyd Reynolds was honored as Calligrapher Laureate of Oregon‚ the first title ever bestowed in the nation. Reynolds, who revived the art of calligraphy in the West, saw it as a means to work one's way back into the origins of literature. A gateway to history.

It was also very Zen. One had to approach the blank page with a meditative approach. The mind had to be stilled. It was a true Vulcan body - mind meld. There was no room for hesitation or false starts.

I had to wipe my mind clean: in that state of mind, I could recognize the letters I needed to write, but I couldn't say what the word was nor could I spell it. If someone talked to me, I immediately made a mistake—I misspelled the word—or added the words they said—usually a noun. Wherever my mind went while I was calligraphing was not of this world—it was a tranquil white place of suspended time.

During the late 1970s and early 80s, I became the resident calligrapher / sign painter at Sonoma State University. I traded in my steel pen nibs to dance with fat greengrocer felt paint brushes, I pushed the art form into large format. My ephemeral signs and banners on butcher paper graced every corner of the campus.

I made signs for The Student Union, the InterCultural Center, Peter Scarlet's Sonoma Film Institute, and campus events including backdrops for Pete Seeger, Daniel Berrigan, The Jewish Oral History Project, Westwind, The Dead Kennedys, James Burke, etc. Many performing artists who visited SSU, took my banners home with them.

I also did some freelance calligraphy (I called my business Calligrafix). I made wedding invitations, obituaries, cards, menus, programs, tickets, etc. All our posters and broadsides for The Russian River Writers' Guild were hand-calligraphed as getting anything professionally photo-typeset on a huge Compugraphic machine the size of a VW bus—was prohibitively expensive. Hot lead press typography was still in use. Desktop publishing was still a nascent glimmer in Steve Jobs' eye.

About the time I gave up my IBM Selectric typewriter with its daisywheel fonts, is when I quit doing calligraphy. I began to use the Apple and the Mac (and a Laserwriter) with multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts. The desktop publishing revolution had begun.

This post is a funny circle back to Tim Girvin's blog about his connection with Steve Jobs, and Jobs' connection with Lloyd Reynolds and the evolution of the Mac's superb typographic legacy. Reynolds is really the godfather of desktop publishing.

I guess I unconsciously recognized Lloyd Reynold's long-reaching influence on the art of lettering and typography even on the Mac. Steve Jobs stated, "If I had never dropped in on that single course [and audited] in [Reed] college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."

Interesting to note that Tim Girvin's own chancery examples look a lot like Georgiana's work. Lloyd had a strong influence. A distinctive style imprinted upon so many of us—even those of us once and twice removed from the source.

Even Joan Baez kept my calligraphy sign.

Lloyd Reynolds

Note Bene: This blog entry is in response to an interesting calligraphy link posted by Oregon poet Jim Carmin, whose day job is an antiquarian rare book collector and manuscript wrangler for the John Wilson Special Collections at the Multnomah Library. @JimCarmin tweeted: GIRVIN: Steve Jobs, Calligraphy, Lloyd Reynolds and Reed College. Check it out.

SOME LINKS AND CLIPS:
Italic Calligraphy and Handwriting with Lloyd Reynolds
Lloyd Reynolds: Italic Calligraphy

Lloyd J. Reynolds Biography
The Dance of the Pen
'Lloyd Reynolds: A Life of Forms in Art,' on view at Reed College

Steve Jobs Stanford Commemoration speech 2005

My links:
Calligraphy doodles (art)
see also my early calligraphed poems from 1978, 79... (uneven work—some were drafts, and some were silly poems)

After Hearing Gary Snyder Read on the Autumn Equinox, photos

September 20: After teaching Sonoma County History at Elderhostel at Silverpenny Farms, I went into Copperfield's Books to get more material on California Indians—Miwok, and Pomo. There were posters of Gary Snyder all over the store, people purchasing tickets for tonight's benefit event sponsored by the Sonoma County Land Trust.

I look over at a bookshelf, Gary Snyder's in the house. What's funny, is that everybody's importantly confiding to their neighbors—You know I heard Snyder read at... blah blah blah. And no one even knows it's him—practically standing right in front of them. It's as if he were a ghost. I can see him just fine. But apparently no one else can. They carry on. We smirk.

Gary's aged quite a bit since I last saw him. He's more washed out. I went up introduced myself again, hating to have to use those tags. I said by way of introduction, "I was the one who took the photo of you and Will Staple at the Maui Zendo....

Gary, says Oh yes! And reminisces about Aitken Roshi, trying to pinpoint this date. I say, It was the Deep Ecology Conference. He says, you look about the same. How are you? (A non-sequitor.) It's been ten years or more since Maui.

I asked Gary about the event last Saturday evening at San Geronimo Valley Art Center. When I drove by, there were hundreds of cars parked along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It was a zoo. I asked, So, was it a benefit? He said, No it was an event in honor of Kenneth Rexroth. We hiked up to his cabin where he used to write at, and me dictate.…

I interrupted Gary because he'd already slipped into his teacher mode. I said, I grew up there. But Gary's on a roll, he's teaching me about the park, etc. I blurt, My grandfather knew Kenneth Rexroth, but Snyder drones on… And Samuel P. Taylor Park, he says, There's a place called Devil's Gulch… I say, Yes, I know it well, my grandfather used to hike over Mt. Barnabe to visit him…

By the third interruption, I'm frustrated, and Gary finally begins to listen, realizing that I already knew all that information. A regular case of coals to Newcastle. I don't tell him the reason why I became a writer was because when he had read a poem about my ridges, from Manzanita, at Olney Hall, College of Marin, and got the directions all wrong, that was when I began to write. I said, I can do that. And so I did.

I wanted the new stuff— like the how and the why…what it was like to be back in Devil's Gulch after so many years. The cabin is long gone. I wanted a real conversation, not tapes on autopilot.

Perhaps I'm a bit put off by Gary because he continually is cold to those he doesn't know well, especially the women. I remember being hurt by his curtness a few years back, and I told Will Staple about it, who immediately turned around and reacquainted me with Snyder. Snyder suddenly was all very warm and receptive—especially since Philip Whalen, whom I'd known for years, was there, warmly greeting me with enthusiasm.

I guess it all boils down to the company you keep. I hate the fact that I even have to attach myself to men poets in order to get remembered. Where are the women on the Bearshit Trail, indeed? Snyder is a cold fish but we manage a few more civilities. He said he was just browsing around, checking out this book, and turns back to the bookstacks. I step out into sunlight, crispness in the air. First day of Fall.

After the poetry reading, Gary was available for book signing. I'd already bought Axe Handles to be signed, but I couldn't find my other books, some were first editions. We chitchatted a bit, and that was that. Awkward. I'm tired of trying to connect with Gary Snyder.

21st of September: Last night, some 300 to 400 people must've turned up to hear Gary Snyder read at Analy High School. I got there at 6:30 and already it was filling fast. They delayed the reading to get everyone seated, even in the balcony. I forgot my journal and resorted to writing on scraps, notes to the unconscious.

Gary read from No Nature: New and Selected Poems. It incorporates almost all his early work. Awesome collection. He opened with a poem I'd never heard before, Song of the Taste. Very erotic. I like to the anecdotal stories prefacing each of the poems, I like the context. Hay for the Horses, an old favorite, Manzanita, and Riprap. He reads from Cold Mountain. Li Po is invoked. Axe Handles—Fenceposts. Word Basket Woman, a poem I use in the classroom when I teach poetry to kids.

A clear, attentive mind
has no meaning but that
which sees is truly seen.
—from Piute Creek

He said the impetus of For/From Lou came from a dream. The circumstances of Lew's death are as follows: Lou Welch disappeared back in 1973 in the Sierra Nevadas. He was he was camping on my land. He didn't come to dinner that night. We went searching for him and found the suicide note in his van. We searched but found nothing, never a word, never a bone. He had told us that he was going to do it.

Now, 12-year-old boys are still searching for Lew's a skull. He's become the friendly ghost poet. For Lew Welch in a Snowfall, also came from a dream, said Snyder.

He talked about writing prose, how it's hard work. With prose, you have to flagellate yourself. He says, It's a call to arms. He says, Don't let right-wingers steal the word, or ethics from us.

He tells us creation stories about Turtle Island, the enduring name, not USA, not America, he talks about the longview. He told a wonderful story about friends of the LA River. A bunch of poets and musicians thought that the river was lonely, all culverted up, so one night they all went down to the river to read it some poems, They played it music to cheer it up.

Word got out, folks began joining them for the readings, and they found themselves organizing into action committee. When the Sacramento folks heard about it, they came calling too. Now local neighborhoods are turning their houses around, and turning everything around to face the river. 

(See my four pages of notes)

After the reading Gary was available for book signing. I brought Axe Handles again but I couldn't find my other books, they were first editions too. Snyder was very warm to me on the second meeting. he drew me a picture of a man on the title page, and on No Nature, he wrote: To Maureen – fellow poet… closure.

Lee, who's a rare book dealer, says that signature is worth something because it's to me, and it refers to me as a poet. I also had Gary sign Atomic Ghost, he had two poems. 

I told him I put on a reading for the anthology and that I was in it too. I gave Gary copies of Mother Earth Journal, as he has a poem in it called Word Basket Woman, and I suspect that he sent it to us before it was published. I also gave him the complete Mother Earth collection. He bowed and thanked me.

I asked if he still wanted a collection of my kid poetry books too and he said: I do, I do. He has several of my anthologies already. He says when he gets a big stack of children's poetry, he wants to do an essay on it. I tell him it's sorely needed. 

Earlier, Lee Perron told me how he had given Snyder a book of his, only to find it in a used bookstore with his inscription on it, weeks later. We discussed how Snyder can be so cold just like that! Turns out his mother lived in Petaluma he used to come visit her on his motorcycle. It sounds like she might've been a bit crazy. Anyway, the relationship wasn't good.

I asked Gary if he'd like me to sign my books too, he says, Please do. I write: To Gary, may the poems of the children continue to teach us. Should I put his last name? Oh well. Lee has some books too. I introduce them, saying Lee started California Poets in the Schools in Sonoma County and that he was my mentor teacher. Their conversation opens up as they talk about CPITS. Good

However the autograph line is long, all the way down the hall—and I had taken cuts with Lee who was near the front. Upon leaving I ask, Gary: Are you still at Kitkitdizze? Gary replies, Yes. I say, If there are any worthwhile photos I'll send you some. We make our goodbyes, the people in line are angry with us, but Gary kept us talking.

It was a complete turnaround from the coldness of this afternoon, I remarked to Lee. He says: I believe Gary was genuinely quite touched by tonight's reception, and the fact that you had his poems marked in Atomic Ghost, end that you had read them at the book party… Somehow I had touched the man behind behind the coldness. 

We agreed that the public setting probably had something to do with it, and he was also on his best behavior. I said, I hated having to continually reintroduce myself as the photographer… That I wasn't into hero worship, I wanted to meet him on equal footing. Keeping in mind how many thousands of people he meets in a year—and I only see him once every 3 to 5 years. 

When talking with Lee, Gary began dropping my name as if he knew me, I was no longer the stranger. Earlier, I pointed out my name on the book, This Body is to Ask, for spelling purposes only. He said: That's the only way I know how to spell it. There are few Maureens that come through the autograph lines, I daresay.

9/20-21/1995
transcribed & edited 11/6/2015

Ascending the Muse of Mt. Tam 4/10/93

ARTISTS UNDER THE INFLUENCE

by Maureen Hurley

Basements are either the penultimate scrounger’s paradise—or the déjà vu epicenter of nightmares—things juxtaposed in every corner. In the lower depths of the Sonoma County Museum one rainy afternoon, the source of my muse (and, my beginning) was waiting for light.

We skirted the gold velvet casting couch guarded by an army of ghostly headless mannequins—one sprouting hairy vaquero’s chaps and another sporting my purple jacket; we waded through narrow labyrinths to reach the object of our desire: the preview of an upcoming art exhibit of Mt. Tamalpais. After viewing racks of paintings, I was struck by the sheer volume of art the legendary peak has inspired in artists and writers over the years.

Mount Tamalpais: An Artistic Interpretation , Sonoma County Museum’s second major Landmark exhibition, opens April 16 and runs through August 8. The mono-thematic exhibit primarily focuses upon the Hudson River style ofnature painting popular in the 1850’s. This premier show is the result of over a year’s worth of negotiation with public and private collectors across the US, and it’s a first for so many paintings of Mt. Tam, to be been displayed under one roof.

Almost every major California artist has painted the mountain. According to curator J. Eric Nelson, “this is an important exhibit of historically significant paintings and literary interpretations.” He views historical art as an integral part of history—necessary to interpret the past.

Marine painter William A. Coulter’s “Mount Tamalpais from the Mouth of the Petaluma River” and “The Genivieve,” a sailboat under full sail, accurately depict turn-of-the-century life of a bygone era on the water-roads, as does Charles Marple’s “Mount Tamalpais from the Napa Slough.”

Though the most recent canvas in the exhibition of oils, watercolors and pastels from 1850 to 1930, is over 60 years old, within this 80-odd year period, most of the major modern schools of painting evolved—from the French Barbizon School to the flat planes of fauvism and sculptural social realism so prevalent in WPA murals of the ’30s. Add Impressionism sandwiched between the American Lumenist- and the Hudson River schools for an aesthetically intriguing collection of paintings.

Several of the represented artists studied in Europe, and were influenced by the plein air outdoor painters of the Barbizon School (which evolved in reaction to studio-painted classical themes favored by the Academy). There are paintings in the style of Papa Corot, replete with cows, to keep the traditional realist happy down on the farm.

Based upon an awareness of structure, and solid forms, Hudson River style paintings depicted majestic nature themes as an expression of the sublime mystery; distilled movements of the elements—light and water—as a metaphor for the religious experience—studies of theosophy and light.

Mt. Tam grows taller, becomes more rugged. . . It’s said that landscape painters enter a sacred inner realm—a place no one else sees. But not all that meets the eye is pastoral. Ironically, while the painter was recording these timeless primordial visions, the exploitation and collapse of the natural world—mining, logging, siltation, overgrazing and the extinction of native species—was in full swing.

Theodore Wores turn-of-the-century painting, “Mount Tamalpais from Corte Madera Creek” is a pleasing blend of styles—reminiscent of the sculptural and flat planes of the Munich School—with impressionistic energy and sensibilities, as is S. C. Gile’s “Mount Tam from Belvedere Lagoon.” An early California painter, Gile was a member of the “Society of 6” along with Percy Gray.

As we unwrapped these paintings, I kept thinking of WPA projects—especially the Coit Tower frescoes. I am drawn to the solid pieces—Fauvism? perhaps best exemplified by Xavier Martinez’s canvas with its blue shard of sky poking the horizon. Sidney T. Daken (“Mount Tamalpais, Early Evening”) was a fresco painter in San Francisco. After the 1906 quake, he moved to Santa Rosa and opened an art school, and Edwin C. Siegfried (“Mount Tamalpais and Sausalito”) was a WPA artist.

Another important aspect of the exhibit is the emphasis on the rich literary tradition that arose a century-and-a-half ago, that continues to flourish. San Francisco’s Golden Age in the ’30s owes much to the influence of the Muse.

The exhibit includes a collection of early books and poetry as well as memorabilia from various hiking clubs. Avid hikers and readers, my grandparents were on intimate terms with the mountain and her lore.

V.S. Naipaul states “No city or landscape is truly rich unless it has been given the quality of myth by the writer, painter or association with great events.” Mt. Tam, The Sleeping Lady, the Indian Princess, a.k.a. The Magic Mountain, the North Bay and Marin County’s most visible landmark, is associated with great events (from the oldest west coast cross-country race from hell, the Dipsea Race, to myriad groundbreaking rock concerts—with debuts by the Doors, Steppenwolf, Maria Muldour), and has served as resident muse for countless artists of all disciplines.

Thomas Mann’s novel, The Magic Mountain, may have been responsible for Mount Tam’s tune-in, turn-on & drop-out nickname popular in the 1960s. The Spanish couldn’t agree upon a single name, and gave it several: La Sierra de Nuestra Padre de San Francisco (The Mountain Range of our Father, St. Francis); Pico y Cerro de Reyes (Peak and Hill of Kings); Picacho Prieto (Sharp Dark Peak).

British explorers monikered it the “Table Hill of Beechey,” the French christened it “Mont de La Table,” one homesick Mexican alcalde called it “Palma,” and the Italians dubbed it “Palermo Mountain.”

General Vallejo used the Miwok tribal name, and their name for the mountain: Temal-pa. In the days of yore, spelling was at best, a creative act; the Spanish corruption of Temal-pa resulted in a dozen different spellings and theories—i.e., the name came from the Mexican state of Tamalipas.

Searching for Indo-European linguistic roots, my grandmother transliterated it as the land of the Tamals (of India), grumbled, “Maybe they got Columbus all wrong.” Most likely the name Tamalpais is of Coast Miwok origin: tamal for bay/bay-country or west and pa-is for hill or mountain (depending upon which linguist you read).

Contrary to how she may look, Mt. Tam is not a volcano; the crown jewel rising from the world’s most beautiful bay is metamorphic. At 2,560 ft., Mt. Tam (the West Peak was 2,604 ft. until the military shaved it), Marin’s tallest, is one of three prominent Bay Area peaks (4,344 ft. Mt. St. Helena and 3,849 ft. Mt. Diablo are taller). She has been compared to Japan’s sacred volcano—bestowed with the honorific title of the Mt. Fuji of the West by the Japanese.

And she has real treasures: East Peak’s rare metamorphic dark quartz-tourmaline (normally found in igneous rock), is a geologic enigma not listed in field guides. We used to find other treasure—tiny opals and garnets at the pale green serpentine and blueschist outcroppings where ancient stands of pygmy Sargent cypress, with trunks the size of broomhandles, compressed time. And there are even rarer endemic plants. . .

Like Mt. Fuji, Mt. Tam has spurred generations toward great passion since the idea of speech was first whispered into the ear of the air. The Coast Miwoks of Southern Sonoma and Marin Counties called her the mythic turtle the island of the earth rests upon—Turtle Island—and when she moves, the earth trembles.

There’s another creation story of two struggling giants (Mts. Tam and Diablo)—their fighting divided the earth—the bay came to be, and their severed limbs formed the long coastal ridges.

The romantic stories of Temelpa, the beautiful Indian maiden for whom many a brave warrior had fallen, is Anglo—with roots in the tales of Brothers Grimm. Some say Temelpa was troubled by all the fighting, and died of sorrow, or, to stop the warring, sacrificed herself/or was martyred to save the village. Her lover carried her to the top of the mountain and died next to her. The gods took pity and turned her into a mountain; the foothill by her side (Mill Valley) is the Fallen Warrior.

Others say she is merely sleeping, waiting for the bridegroom sky to wake her with a kiss.

Seeking the source of the Muse, California’s first official Poet Laureate (1915), Ina Coolbrith was said to have written The Ivory Tower one summer atop Mt. Tam’s East peak. Also under the influence were Ambrose Bierce, Kathleen Norris, Juaquin Miller, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who said of Tam’s charms, “I never had a more glorious experience,” (elementary, my dear Watson!).

Donn Totheroh’s pageant of the Indian princess, Tamalpa, staged at the Mountain Theater in 1921, became the official Mountain play. (In 1966, we too were under the influence—stoned and listening to rock & roll music in the Greek-style Mountain Amphitheater. . .)

In the ’30s and ’40s, poet/journalist Kenneth Rexroth, and later, The Beats readily succumbed to the Muse and got immortalized in the process: the character Japhy Ryder (poet Gary Snyder) in Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, said that Tam is as beautiful a mountain as anywhere in the world.

Poet/Zen master Philip Whalen wrote extensively of (and on) Mt. Tam as did Lew Welch (Huey Lewis’s step-father): Praise is Tamalpais/perfect in wisdom and beauty/she of the wheeling birds. And in Lew’s much-anthologized “The Song Mt. Tamalpais Sings,” he wrote:

Centuries and hordes of us,
from every quarter of the earth,
now piling up,
and each wave going back
to get some more.

This is the last place.
There is nowhere else left to go.

For we have walked the jeweled beaches
at the foot of the final cliffs
of all Man’s wanderings.

This is the last place.
There is nowhere else we need to go.

The mountain served as a place where all manner of rites of passage, from conception to death, took place. Rexroth wrote of his dead wife Andree: “These are the forest trails we walked together,/. . . your ashes scattered on this mountain/ moving seaward on this stream.”

I have a particular attachment to the mountain. My grandparents spent weekends courting, and hiking on the slopes of Mt. Tam. And, according to my mother, I was conceived on the mountain as well. I speculate: if my mother hadn’t been so deeply moved by the sunset at summer solstice, would I even exist?

In “Journey to Mt. Tamalpais” Sausalito poet and friend, Etel Adnan writes: “When you realize you are mortal, you also realize the tremendous sense of the future. You fall in love with a time you never perceive.”



The Western Sonoma County Paper April, 10, 1993

Politicking Arts Day, NPW journal

4/27/1987

This time away from the real world has calmed me in a way that nothing else could. Easter was a bit much, overnight at my grandmother's at Forest Knolls, going to my aunt Canice's for Easter dinner in Petaluma, visiting Ken Larsen's parents in Novato, then going to San Francisco for the final National Poetry Week readings and party with Etheridge Knight. Then back to Novato, overnight at Herman Berlandt's, and then to Sacramento in the morning. A lot of couch surfing.

On Monday and Tuesday Ken and I did some heavy politicking for Arts Day at the state capital. I feel like one of those ancient ones, been in the game a long, long time. People are finally listening to me. It just takes time for the world to recognize and adjust to how you view yourself. Putting oneself out there has a lot to do with it. And for what? This this incredible resource pool I've developed, what do I want to be when I grow up? A good question for sure.

I got congratulations for all my CAC and artist and library grant, and I'm dreading the work. I'm dreading my CEIF grant, working with kids. The burnout has begun and I haven't even put the book together yet. The next two weeks will be incredibly intensive. Why, I've taken the past few days off, to be in slugabed city, just in order to survive.

Actually, it wasn't downtime. I revised several old poems on the computer. More like 50 poems. Oof. Of those 50 poems, a mere handful are even worth revising. The problem is that in my earlier work, I was moved by visual imagery, and the connections I made between my present emotional state of being, and nature were understated. The polar ice caps, volcanoes, and the ocean were my metaphor. I was developing my own mythos and my voice.

Poems that were a page and a half long, were edited down to seven or eight lines. I really learned something of the craft, I think. I hope. And it's never been obvious or anything I could even put my finger on and say aha. I understand. All of these summers at Napa Poetry Conferences, and especially with all my California arts Council grants, literally thousands of kids poems have that I've produced, have taught me the brevity of lines, if anything.

It's safe to say my first work is really awful and padded.

Kids really do write better than beginning adult writers, probably because they don't hate to write. What's missing in my early work is the engaged intellect, what I am, who I am, what is going on in my head, but the creative impulse is wailing away. More like flailing away.

Yes, the muses of my writing have abandoned me; I write less now, but before they were like cotton candy, all bulk and no substance, just sugar and water.

John says that I don't need his poetic critical advice on my work anymore, that I've learned it from him. We argue. I say I've learned very little from him as far as craft goes. He's not gone over very many of my poems. Ever.

Also, it's not something he likes to do. Therefore, to him, it all seems like he's done more than he actually has done. Because I'm in the middle of it all this trying to learn editing, I feel a little abandoned. I never quite got it right. And he's pulling out all the stops claiming turf. He claims he's taught me a lot poetically. And I'm not so certain.

When I wrote Falling to Sea Level, I had absolutely no help from John, everything was placed where I thought it should be, maybe I have learned it after all on my own. And I just don't trust it.

John is very facile at writing. I'm not. Perhaps that's why I never write in my poetry journal. It takes a crisis. Then it's more Dear Diary than poetry—and who wants to read that?

I've done about five or six watercolors in the past two weeks. I've gotten a show and a reading coming up on May 23, and I need more work – except instead of the tropics theme with watercolor crayons, the aquarelles, I'm deviating into straight watercolor and floral design elements. But I don't like most of it. So I've only got one new piece for the show after all that work.

I had planned to do several more pieces when I was in Baja, but since we didn't go, I have no new material. At this point I'm looking through my photographs for inspiration.

Out of the blue, last week, John decided we should break up, without telling me, so we held vacation plans in abeyance. He decided to go to the desert with his daughter and ex-wife. I'm enraged, but that isn't of much use. Jilted is more like it.

John gave me a writing  assignment. I find reasons not to write about it, but tonight my heart wants to burst, to weep all this sorrow into a saline river. So I make long lists. I have a fondness for semi semicolons; I like Philip Whalen's lists. He told me that he was mean to Gary Snyder when they were young; but now Gary's become a teacher. And Phil became a monk because of Gary; I tell Phillip I don't want to be a hermit. I like sex too much. He laughs. Ah, yes, the vagaries of circular writing.

John's more prone to black-and-white decisions. And I'm more ambiguous, knowing these things have their own rhythm ,and cannot be forced.  Like Whalen, I'm more of a Taoist in these matters, I think.

On the long solitary drive home from Fort Mason, the sorrow keeps bubbling up. So I distract myself with Spanish-language tapes. But it reminds me that I should be in Cabo with John. We would've been there yesterday, Ayer, entonces.

journal Tax Day (photos)

4/15-16

I need to go into the darkroom tonight, and pack up for the next six days. I'll be on the road. National Poetry Week and the California Arts Council Art Day lobbying event. Note to self: Bring Ken Larsen all those Rural Arts Services photos. Darkroom tonight.

The chemicals from the darkroom have hyped me up unbelievably. I couldn't sleep at first, and then I was  glue-eyed and sleepy. I always feel hung over after a long night in the darkroom. I don't know how much of it is being up late at night and the intense activity, or if it's the chemicals. It takes me least an hour to come down afterwards.

I left the darkroom at 12:30 AM and it was 1:30 AM before I was calm enough to think about sleep. Some funny photos of Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. One of Robert Bly as an old hag. Very appropriate. His fans won't like it as it captures a side of him that the majority of the world does not see. But I know about first-hand.