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January 20, 2017

Poetry Friday--A New Project!

Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century With Facsimiles, Notes, and Introduction by John Ashton (1882) was a lucky find for me at Open Library. I spent a number of hours looking through it, and discovered some great woodcut illustrations. I was inspired to use the illustrations and pair them with poems. This has resulted in a number of haiga (haiku/senryu with illustrations) and illustrated short poems. I'll be sharing them over the next few months, mostly on Sundays, which are Happy Haiga Day! here at Random Noodling.

This first one is a senryu written right after Christmas and is based upon a real incident from Christmas Day.

In Chap-Books, I came across The History of Sir Richard Whittington Thrice Lord Mayor of London. The cat in the illustration below, looked more dog-like to me and I thought it would work well with my poem.

[Note: you may know the legend of "Dick Whittington and His Cat," which was the subject of children's books by Robert Lawson (1949), Marcia Brown (1988), and Margaret Hodges (2006).]


© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration source, click here.

Text:

first time
meeting the family
he brings his dog


Here's another:


© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved. Illustration source, click here.

Text:

Mephisto
the crowd still expects
he'll remove his mask

Violet Nesdoly | Poems is this week's Poetry Friday hostess. Do stop by.

29 comments:

  1. What a fun idea. I love your responses to these intriguing illustrations. Can't wait to see more.

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  2. Mmm, I like the second for its symbolism applicable to Trump. So many of his supporters think they know the real him, and the mask will come off....

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    1. I'm trying for a little more subtlety in my efforts, but you've caught me!

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  3. Great illustrations to work with! I'm excited to see what you make with them. The second is especially poignant.

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    1. Since they are all black on aged paper, I'm trying to add a little variety and color to add interest.

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  4. Perfect. The devil does a dog and pony and show. Love these, Diane.

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  5. What a find, Diane. I imagine many tales will come from these pages. Love imagining a newcomer bringing the dog, too. Hiding behind it? That second one is just right for today.

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    1. Who can resist a cute dog? Not only that, it provides an opening for conversation. I don't know if it was intentional, but it worked!

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  6. What a great project, Diane! Our Mephisto will not remove his mask, though - we already know he is who he is.

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    1. There are so many masks it may be impossible to remove them all at this point!

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  7. You find the coolest stuff! Looking forward to your new series.

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    1. I am the queen of wasting time... I love the images that are in the public domain through Open Library or Library of Congress. It is very easy to get suckered into spending hours looking.

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  8. I grew up loving the story of Dick Whittinghton! My dad is proudly cat-obsessed, so he always sought out bedtime stories that starred cats. :-) On a related note, though, I had a boss who was convinced that my last name was Whittington...even after 4+ years of employment... ;-)

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  9. The illustrations are wonderful, and I enjoyed the poems you wrote to accompany them. Now I'm wondering about that dog...

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    1. See my reply to Linda B. above. The dog visit was a big success!

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  10. Diane, I am always intrigued by what your research leads you to. These poems are quite interesting, especially the 2nd one as so many have commented upon. I look forward to what you create each week.

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    1. I might not have a new woodcut piece each week--there's just too much other stuff going on right now!

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  11. I love your knack of finding the perfect image to pair with your short and pity poems! They are always a treat.

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  12. What a neat new project, Diane. It's very interesting. I can't wait to read more from this project!

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    1. A few of the woodcut illustrations jumped out at me as being perfect for poems, so the potential is there. I just have to get down to the execution part.

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  13. What a fun idea - and your poems fit perfectly with the woodcuts; had we not known you wrote them, one would never know otherwise!

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    1. Thank you, Matt! I guess I'm heading in the right direction!

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  14. What amazing projects you come up with, Diane. This looks like so much fun.

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