Welcome. Thank you for following the thread that brought you here.

The notion of a virtual blog tour landed here upon being sparked by my dear friend and colleague Daniel Ari, who made the initial suggestion that I might like to participate in such a tour, following his blog tour post (a poet friend and colleague had invited him.) I felt the spark land and since then the question has been did the spark become an ember and did the ember survive? Or perhaps another question might be was it a virtual spark and does it, now, have what it takes to light this contemplative, virtual fire? Perhaps. Shall we see?

What is not a perhaps is the whole-hearted conspirator I find in Daniel Ari, the person, being, and creator afire. I invite you to visit his blog Fights With Poems, as long as you have more than a moment to explore and drop in. Daniel’s projects are a many (writing, publishing, teaching, collective blogging and more), his stretch is broader than most and not confined by his idea of himself, if I can say so. One project of note is his forthcoming book, One Way to Ask, a book of querons, a poetry form of Daniel’s originality, inspiration, and making. For this book, he is collaborating on many levels with artists and other co-conspirators, which has Daniel’s signature of ever-ready-to-remake-oneself with each sitting, writing, and re-versing. It has been my honor and stimulation both to be included in amongst the co-conspirators included in this book. I look forward to the publication of One Way to Ask. 

And thank you, Daniel, for inviting me once again into territory that I may not otherwise find myself in if it weren’t for you and our connection! (Another such invitation from Daniel brought numerous years of my participation in his collective blog, IMUNURI. Currently Daniel has 131 submissions there, I have 57, and ten other poets have submitted their works/poems there, as well.)

A photographic interlude as the blog tour continues…

The Virtual Blog Tour comes with these party-c-pant questions (putting on these party pants is one way to participate!)

1) What am I working on?

I don’t know what I am working on until I am working on it. Even then, while I am “working on” something, it is more precisely working me or opening out through me or pondering within this persona/non-persona. It doesn’t seem to be my way or mode (at this time) to know what I am working on. What does come, at times, is some kind of knowing being expressed through words on paper or words being typed on a computer or iPod screen. Question #4 seems to be creeping into #1.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Similarly, I am not aware of my poetry and writing being of a specific genre type. If you know otherwise, please let me know! Ha! What comes through as poetry seems to be unique to itself. I will say something that does come to say around this question: the poetry I write comes from or via direct experiencing, an internal voicing or somatic experiencing as the words present themselves. I would not say that I don’t think about what I write, but something like that. It seems to me that I am ready when something seems to come through and have easiness of expression as words in some kind of structure close to what we call a poem. Poems as awareness as felt sense, perhaps.

3) Why do I write what I do?

“Why do I do what I do?” as a question seems to come out of some unseen or unconscious motivation to seek security (or need to know) when security of that kind is simply non-essential. So, for me, there is not an need to answer such a question. The poems ponder enough on their own and simply get written (or not.)

4) How does my writing process work?

There are tastes of this question in the previous answers 1, 2, and 3. What else I might share here is that there is some kind of seeding and then a gestation period and then, perhaps, a kind of birthing in the writing. The writing usually takes my full attention and is something that moves through and I respond in the now. Often there is the anticipation of something before it finds its form as words on paper, mostly as poetry, sometimes as contemplative writing in prose, sometimes in photography or a combination of the aforementioned.

The writing is a kind of direct experience, as in I am present for something as it is felt and expresses as words. The photography, too, is a kind of calling or marking of direct experience and has a numinous quality within it. What gets expressed, conveyed, felt, or sensed through the sharing of these, I also do not know what that might be. It is like breathing for me. Or at least that is how it comes today to write about such things.

Monsoon skies in El Rito north of Questa, New Mexico ~ July 2014

And finally, the blog tour may continue in a similar fashion to above, if I have other bloggers to invite for you to check out with blog tour posts of their own. However, I found that I did not have currently active bloggers to invite!  So I invited both a poet/artist and a songwriter/musician/poet to start their own blogs such that they could be included with accolades in this Virtual Blog Tour.

Perhaps they will do just that and at least one new blogger will be featured here in short time. I will update this entry with their URL and some of what inspired me to invite them to participate. Perhaps.