In Print

I learned just now that today is National Poetry Day, and I decided to take advantage of that to share with you some news which I think is pretty cool (but then, I would). Apparently, National Poetry Day has a theme which, this year, is water, but I'm not massively interested in that. Sorry.

In May last year, I blogged here about the idea of using SL to create 'creative responses' - essentially, creating images or videos using Second Life that were inspired by, or helped to illustrate in some way, a poem or a piece of prose or a song. For someone like me who cannot draw, having a compliant model and an effectively limitless space to design and decorate and light are invaluable resources. My own creative response, written about in the same post, came about almost by accident: when trawling through my inventory trying to put an outfit together, I realised that what I was creating was a character I had been writing about for a while. I posted the latest piece about her, a poem, alongside pictures of Kitti, and ta-dah! My very first serious creative response. I think I described the situation a little better in the original post itself, but shh (I'll post a link to it at the bottom of this post). 

The news I wish to share is that just last week, that same poem appeared in print in a real life poetry anthology. It's called 'Neo Cassandra', and was published by Forward Poetry in their book 'The World at War'. Periodically, Forward Poetry run competitions, inviting the world and his wife to submit poems about a specific theme, then they pick the ones they like the best, and publish them (with your permission, of course). I was thrilled to be selected for the anthology, especially since I had submitted the poem months ago on a whim and a sense that I had nothing to lose. This is the fourth of my poems to be published by this company, though the other three were published almost ten years ago now. Jeez, that makes me feel old.

I'm not earning any money from the publication whatsoever, and the book is (in my opinion) really expensive, so I have no qualms about saying that if you wish to read my poem (and my original blog post about creative responses, as mentioned above), you may do so by clicking here - here!

Headed west

Some other related things: other creative responses / Sian Pearl does National Poetry Day / SLart for SLart's sake

Le Jardin Electric

Le Jardin Electric, Hangars Liquides

On Thursday, I went to my first virtual poetry reading. Sian Pearl performed 'l'objet petit a' at le Jardin Electric in Hangars Liquides. It lasted for half an hour, and more avatars turned up than my laptop would render. There was a great, friendly atmosphere, and reading poetry is what Sian does for a living, so everything went pretty smoothly. Including the audience seating, which, at le Jardin Electric, spins.

Occasionally - and, judging by what others were typing in the local chat, this happened to most people at some point -, the voice feed would cut out, and then cut back in, either at the point it broke out (suggesting I was now listening at a delay), or with some of the cast missing, creating something slightly more disjointed than Sian originally anticipated. But since such is based heavily on our individual connection, the performance each of us heard must have been slightly different, individual. The technology involved in making a live virtual performance pushes the idea of individual reception and experience. 

And, somehow (I'm not sure how, my sound cut out at this moment), Sian managed to work two of my favourite of her poems into the performance, and even read one she says was inspired by me/Kitti - and told everybody that is was so, so we had a little blush is-everyone-looking-at-me moment (they weren't).

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at the event, so I don't have one of Sian in her outfit, or Hangars Liquides' own Lawrence Celestalis, who looks awesome in a suit, or any of the other lovely (and wonderfully dressed) people that turned up. I went back after to get these shots, which I would advise to any SL users because le Jardin Electric really is a wonderful space. But I'll save my ode to Hangars Liquides for another post.

Inside the space

Neo Cassandra

During my time in SL, I have come across not only a wealth of interesting and creative avatars and in-world designers, but also a whole horde of creative SL bloggers. Now, admittedly, most of these bloggers are fashion bloggers, creating catalogues of inventive and often beautiful combinations of outfits, but it does not appear to be an uncommon phenomena for them to add amongst the screenshots and the "my avatar wears..." lists some kind of alternative creative response adding to the image or the atmosphere of the post. 

Amongst the blogs I follow, Sian Pearl does this most often, giving us not only great shots of herself, but also some kind of insight, poetic or prosiac, into the mind of the variation of character she has chosen to adopt today, or the thinking behind her creation. This evening, moments before coming over here to start this entry, I found an image in the flickr photo stream of Aida Ewing (who, I understand, runs the Glam Affair store in SL) which she has captioned with a link to a music video on Youtube. The picture can be found here - here! Similarly, over at Renoobed, a blog post appeared today featuring an amusing anecdote that then slipped into the lyrics of a song. The point I'm trying to make is that people aren't just straight-forwardly documenting their adventures (and their outfits) in SL - they're making art out of it, enjoying a little creative freedom.

And why shouldn't they? Avatars take time and effort and, unless you've a super computer that can handle SL's demanding graphics rendering systems and its tempestuous shadows that seem to cause EVERYONE to crash (I have never even been able to enable shadows, ha ha), they can take time and effort to photograph, too.

This evening, I logged in to find a group gift from the jewellery story Amorous, and decided, since I'd a little free time, that I would try to design an outfit to match it. I wanted to mix the mysticism of Matchbook Monday's jewellery with something edgy, cold, and maybe a little sci-fi, and when I trawled through my inventory, I realised that I was essentially recreating an image that I have been writing about beyond SL for several years now. It is an image that intrigues me, and I have been playing with it, writing poem after short scene after poem attempting to realise and build on that image. So why not use SL to help create another piece of original material to go with the rest of my work?

Why not indeed.

Daughter of Priam...

Over long lashes

Curled over yellow eyes, they fought

Ham-fisted, ham-hammered,

Caved in head after caved in head,

And it is done. Helen is

Returned, and all other women be

Damned

To rot alone

As their men fight another man's war.

But wait:

Neo Cassandra - Daughter of Priam - 

Clad in latex and steel - 

Saunters through the ruins of Troy

On Agamemnon's arm,

Headed west: Greece ahead

And there to make

A blood bath of another marriage bed.

...in the ruins of the city.

Please visit my flickr via this link - here! - to see these images in full size.