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The Poet's House

. . . the poet's house is the heart without walls, a map

of what can't be seen, the space around, the space inside

a drawer of darkness, a blue room of breath and earth,

an empty bowl

Bruce Johnson, sculptor. POETRY HOUSE

Text of The Poet's House is written on the under-walls and the lamp inside Poetry House. A bound copy of The Poet's House belongs with the Poetry House sculpture, while the original hand-written book is in Special Collections at Doyle Library in Santa Rosa, California.


NARRATIVE - When Bruce Johnson invited me to participate in his Poetry House sculpture project, neither of us had any idea where that invitation would lead. And indeed, it took almost nine months before I unconsciously transposed his Poetry House to the poet’s house, an alteration of language that became the key to my writing. Thus, The Poet’s House came into being with the help of Trickster, who is so often the source of creative work, turning things upside down or inside out and stimulating thought by means of error or accident.

 

It was this personalizing that gave me entry to writing  --  a book in four sections, comprising a single poem written in long-hand that refused to come into type, a book that required binding and an artist’s box to live within the sculpture. But even before it was bound, the writing found its home in the sculpture when friends were invited to take phrases and words from its pages and write them on the Poetry House walls, imbuing the structure itself with poetic language.

 

What is the poet’s world? It is the whispers of The Four Winds, the voice of Coyote and the elder who tells his story. It is the Dust and Ashes of our world with all its violence and its beauty, it’s temple bells, its wars and ruins, and it's autumn apples.

 

The Poet’s House  encourages each of us to enter the inner landscape of poetic mind. –   The Poet’s House is really a long meditation from a state of mind so personal it passes through itself and shape-shifts to something larger, something I cannot call my own.
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*While the original 76 page handwritten book belongs with POETRY HOUSE, it has been scanned and copies are available by special order at poetherron@gmail.com. Please use the subject line: Poet’s House.

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