out and about

NaPoMo 2019

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It’s a perfect spring day here in Kelowna, B.C. and it put me in the mood for an installation. I headed out with a giddy feeling in my stomach, and with my supplies…poems, bull clips, a couple of promo postcards, my camera. I chose a S.E. Kelowna location for PUP today, just down the road from where we live now.

As I was walking through the stillness of the forest, I became suddenly aware that I was alone in a somewhat wild place, and I admit I began listening more intently for wild things. I recalled that it was in April 2012 that I began my Pop-Up Poetry initiative which has taken me to scatter poems and bits of poems wherever I travel, and many times at home .  Sometimes I forget about PUP, and then it comes back to mind, or someone will mention it to me, and then I’ll follow the prompt and do it again. It is just one more way for me to share my poetry with the world, and in April that means in celebration of National Poetry Month (NaPoMo).

Hope you find one from today’s install! If you do, feel free to take it home.

Next week PUP will be in Quebec! I’ll share pictures!

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Be brave

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Inside, your voice speaks: You know you can do it. You know you have something to say. You’ve dedicated years of time, talent, and treasure to this, and seen the ripple effects as others receive the gifts. Yes, there is that fine line that you walk between true humility and feeling…joyful and proud to share your poetry…that it is even yours to give. You know the excitement you feel when you get out there, that freaky, wonderful, guerrilla prickling under your skin feeling as you imagine someone finding something you left behind. You know it’s a good thing.  Be brave. 

So I do it. I am brave. I install my “Pop-up” poems in a lavish sprinkling all over the woods. I watch from a distance. I wonder is it good enough, will it touch someone, will someone find it and like it, will someone say something, or will it all remain a mystery to me of what happens next?

Last day at the retreat, one of my new circle of creative sisters says to the gathered group: “so what I want to remember most of all is this…how magical it felt to find this little poem bit in the woods, and so I’m writing it here on my expressive art piece, so I never forget that feeling, and my prayer captured in those beautiful words.”

“Fill me with God scent, Spirit favour, something good.”

Yes, God, yes, yes.

Be of good courage. Be brave.

LAE

Flash Poetry Pin-ups…

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The sun came out today so I went out too… with a satchel of poems and plastic sleeves and clips to affix them temporarily to some chain link fence. And the poems I chose for this first in a long time Pop-Up-Poetry install (since Christmas’s “Illumination Installations”) were those that resulted from my most recent forays into FLASH POETRY on Facebook.

Here’s what I did. I posted a “Call Out” on my Facebook pages, asking friends to post as comments their words or phrases, for a given short period of time. Then, when the time was up, I harvested their words and let them simmer for a bit. Each time, serendipitously, a theme arose and a new poem was birthed including all the harvested words (but not necessarily in the same order they appeared or even in their original context). I posted the poems giving credit to all contributors, and then repeated the process. Six times so far. The sixth poem is still simmering at this point.

So far I have “found” and posted five FLASH POEMS in this way of collaboration and creation. “Flash” simply a way to describe the spontaneity and fast turnaround time from call out to post, like Flash Mobs. Facebook as a public, creative medium, and friends as collaborators/co-creators. Flash fun for everyone! (I realize these poems may be disqualified from future publishing, but I really don’t mind. They are already serving a purpose. They are for people. People are reading them.)

Anyway, today I took three flash poems out for a walk and pinned them up at random locations. These spontaneous distributions of words continue to inspire me no matter how or when or why.

Here’s one you might find if you are walking through my neighbourhood anytime soon;

FLASH POEM #2*
by Lesley-Anne Evans

Say

Must you
say sayonara? Say
sepia photographs. Remind me
of that day last August
when we lay on the beach, watched
the clouds like Madagascar vanilla
spilled on the counter
at sunset. Where will we find
that fierceness, that turn
into the light.

Quails scoot over my lawn, little balls
scoot into the sunlight. Hey, can you
give me the tutorial, say the fierceness
of Madagascar, remind me
of sepia
wait a minute
sayonaras.

*A found poem taken from words and phrases gathered on Facebook with permission of the following contributors; John Dorig, Jamie Rosanna Dorig, Carolyn Campbell, Loraine Kemp, Kelly Pond, and Danny Richardson. A new context is created within the framework of the poem by Lesley-Anne Evans.

That’s all for now. Gotcha, neighbour!

Lesley-Anne