Hicks-Jenkins chooses Youmans on The Lydian Stones

The Lydian Stones went on a short hiatus for much of the holidays, and I am pleased to say that I have actually received letters of reproach! In apology, I post the next offering a day early. Clive Hicks-Jenkins was the first off the mark with a post, but I have delayed him because it seemed flaunting and immodest to have the first post be about one of my own poems.

One of those days

Detail,Yolanda Sharpe painting, Earlville Opera House Show.

I am reading A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage for the very last time--it's about to go to the printer. And I am having one of those awful days where absurd things happen, and everything goes wrong. The most recent thing is that I just broke the glass in a biggish watercolor by Louis D. Rubin, Jr.  Glass all over the dining room that I will have to pick up without accidentally slicing off my head, which is where I am supposed to keep my brain, though today I am not sure where it is. Honestly. I'm going out with a painter friend, Yolanda. Shall have to be careful not to be run over by an elephant escaped from a traveling circus or be stung by a knot of winter bees or eat a poisonous fish. Because it's one of those sorts of days.

Current Digby videos of my poems + news

In Extremis from The Throne of Psyche: film and music by Paul Digby

The Exile's Track from The Throne of Psyche: film and music by Paul Digby

The Nesting Doll from The Throne of Psyche:  film and music by Paul Digby

A Fire in Ice from The Throne of Psyche:  film and soundscape by Paul Digby

The Birthday Roses from the manuscript of fall 2010, The Book of the Red King:  film and music by Paul Digby

Next up:  some videos for The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press, forthcoming) and The Book of the Red King (to be submitted this year.) We already have the three division pages for The Foliate Head, and Clive Hicks-Jenkins is working on the cover... And I am doing final scrubs on the 140+ poems of The Book of the Red King. I have cut some but imagine it will run about 145 poems in all.

The Lydian Stones will be back next week--I'm waiting until after Twelfth Night!

Collaborations with artists, 2012

A foliate head by Clive Hicks-Jenkins...

With painter Clive Hicks-Jenkins and designer Andrew Wakelin of Wales:

Clive is giving me three foliate heads for division pages and painting a head for the cover of The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press), and Andrew will be working with us on book design.

With painter Graham Ward of England:

I'm writing poems for Graham's opening in June--and having lots of fun doing so and getting first peek at his new paintings.

With the English-born transplant to Ohio, composer-and-much-more Paul Digby, and his wife, painter Lynn Digby:

We'll be doing what appears to be a fairly ambitious collaborative project, but right now it's barely getting started. More on that one later. This one is a sort of outgrowth of Paul's curation, music composition, and paintings joined with work by Lynn Digby and four other painters in "Into the Light" at Anderson Creative (November, 2011)--at least, doing such a large collaborative project seems to have fired the desire to do another.

Also with Paul Digby:
Paul is going to be matching more of my poems with music and film. Five are already up at youtube.  Rather saintly of him, I think!