August 19th, 2012

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Crowdfunding Creative Jam

The Crowdfunding Creative Jam is now open on Dreamwidth and on LiveJournal.  It's running Sunday, August 19-Monday, August 20 with a theme of "preservation/conservation."  Please drop by and leave some prompts, or claim prompts for writing and artwork.


From My Prompts

catsittingstill wrote a beautiful song, "Harvest," from two of my prompts.  So far, the lyrics are posted; I'm hoping to hear the tune as well.  I think it would be lovely as liturgy in a harvest ritual.

thesilentpoet wrote "Angels, too" from my prompt about excavating history.  Not yet posted.


What I Have Written

"Stitching Time" -- today's freebie, a Hart's Farm poem about bookmaking.

"Ashes, Ashes"
From the prompt about restoring habitats, I got the free-verse poem "Ashes, Ashes." It's a Path of the Paladins piece about Shahana and Ari taking care of a meadow after a fire.
42 lines, Buy It Now = $20 SOLD
Fly Free

Poem: "Stitching Time"

Here is the freebie for the August 2012 Crowdfunding Creative Jam.  It was inspired by a prompt from thesilentpoet.  This poem belongs to the Hart's Farm series; you can read more about that on the Serial Poetry page.


Stitching Time


The bookmakers gathered in the workshop.
Hrafn and Solvig cut the pages with their steady hands,
dark heads leaning together as they worked.
The three sisters Tifridh, Trygve, and Tófa
folded and sewed the pages.
Finlo prepared the covers and the spines,
his fingers dabbed with glue and ink instead of paint.
Soren manned the press, carefully crimping each book
into a single solid object assembled from its pieces.

They worked quietly, steadily, their project
covering the whole big table beside the floor looms,
pages of illustrations and text spread out
and sorted into stacks, curls of heavier paper
for flyleaves and covers, scraps of leather,
slim wooden boards, bottles of glue and spirits,
the tough cloth used for sewing pages inside spines,
spools of thread and needles glinting in the sunlight,
all the marvelous tools of their trade.

Under their careful hands, the books took shape --
blank sketchbooks for the artists,
lined pages for the writers and recordkeepers,
the intricate framework of rows and columns
for more complicated bookkeeping,
pictures and words already written
now assembled into storybooks --
all capturing ideas and memories for the ages,
stitching time into place so that it could not escape.