Poeoons?

Writing and drawing are alike in some respects and different in others.

Jason Chatfield recently posted a bit here on Substack asking whether writing and drawing are the same. It’s a good read, referring to many other ‘creatives’ struggling with their self-definition. (Still so hard to call myself a writer, a cartoonist, an artist, anything really.)

Creatively, there’s a common process, and a desk is probably involved at some point, and pens, but art is about form, and form for writing and for drawing are very different creatures.

The proof, as they say, is in the eating of the pudding. Today’s project is a bit of a departure because I asked a friend of mine, Ronna Bloom, who is a fine poet and happened to be up in this very remote part of the woods to give a reading a couple of weeks ago, whether she had ever considered illustrations to accompany her poems. She promptly sent me a bunch of poems.

Illustrating a text literally is the stuff of children’s books. Poems don’t translate so easily. There’s a lot going on metaphorically, imagisticly. I found myself trying to pull phrases or images or feelings out, and then, well, I don’t know what happened, fingerprints just wanted to jump in.

Ronna will know which poems these relate to but you’ll have to wait until the book comes out to figure it out.

In the meantime, keep looking up. Or maybe don’t.

Truth be told, fingerprints have been standing in the wings for some years now, waiting for an invitation. Today turned out to be their day. Thank you Ronna. It made for a productive day process-wise.