It was Valentine’s Day, but we’d already broken up. I ended it days earlier because he never listened to me — not about extravagant gifts, not when I asked him to drive with both hands on the wheel, not when I said I was allergic to dogs. He also didn’t pay attention when I told him not to deliver the postscript Valentine’s gift furtively left at my door. It, a $75 teddy bear, was dressed in what he assumed was my regular working-from-home attire: suit, skirt, briefcase.
But removed of her conformity? I say: who couldn’t love a bear named Naked Betty?
I find I have fond affection for the small hemlock under whose wide branches I sought refuge that cool October day. The soft rain having changed its mind turned cold and hard, and I — caught without a hat or jacket — had no choice but to suspend my walk for a while. And so it was I tucked into a dry spot beneath the hemlock at the side of the trail and leaned into her, perhaps for comfort or camaraderie — we will wait this out together. You can form bonds like that, you know, with trees. It comes almost instinctually, as if pulled up from some deep primordial well of remembrance. She was and remains like kin, and I wave when I pass her now. I like to think she nods back.
Saturday, February 12, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. BOOK SIGNING & ART EXHIBIT at Guilford Art Center 411 Church Street, Guilford, CT
• Book Signing with writer Jen Payne • “Bigger on the Inside,” exhibit by artist Sarah Zar • Free and open to the community
Connecticut writer Jen Payne has long been inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points — and her new book WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY tells of such a moment. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story — just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Told through a series of emails, WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is the story of two people who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts…and futures.
She thought about him often over the years. Looked him up online occasionally to see where he was and if he was all right. It wasn’t until last fall that she found his email address, and several months more before she got up the courage to write.
Influenced by the work of Brené Brown and a proponent of the bravery of storytelling, Payne says WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is “about having the courage to speak our truths; it’s about trust and vulnerability, and about the true blessings found when we open our hearts — come what may.”
What followed surprised her even more…
Please note, masks are required, regardless of vaccination status, please see current COVID protocols. Snow date: Saturday, February 19.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) will be available at the Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
Her specially curated exhibit will be on view in the GAC lobby throughout February.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
by Susan Braden, CT Insider/Shoreline Times, February 4, 2022
Reconnecting with a long-lost love online is not a new story — but it’s one that still captures the imagination of many people.
What if? — that’s the big question that Branford writer Jen Payne aims to answer in her new novel, Water Under The Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story.
Set in the early 2000s, the story is told through a series of emails between two former loves who find each other online after years of leading separate lives. And it’s a story readers can relate to, the author said.
“I think it’s one of these things where people reconnect after however many years,” and think, “‘Well, what’s going to happen?’” Payne said.
The epistolary novel is reminiscent of the hit ’90s rom-com You’ve Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, produced nearly a decade before social media popped up on anyone’s radar or screen. Long before smart phones and tablets, people communicated online via their home computer. In the movie, Hanks and Ryan fall in love through email.
An epistolary novel is one written as a series of letters, in this case emails, Payne said.
Payne’s novel is a personal story which she calls “creative nonfiction.” She describes the book as part “conversation, a memoir, a love story.”
While Payne was going through this email exchange in real time, she knew it would make a good book — whichever way it turned out. So she saved all the emails all these years.
When she started to write the novel, “it had a life of its own,” Payne said.
In the book, Payne captures the first ripples of excitement, her fear of embarrassment and the emotional rush of what it might be like to reconnect with someone special from the past.
Payne wanted readers to see themselves and recognize “those moments when you fall in love — either you fall in love with a person, you fall in love with a situation, you may fall in love with a new baby.
“Those moments that create great change for us and how it opens our heart,” she said.
While a true story, Payne said she was “creatively interpretative” in her use of the actual emails — they have a poetic cadence to them. She never names either character.
Catching up with a lost love is a universal theme, she said. When Payne gave a copy of her book to a fellow writer, Payne recalled her friend’s eager response, “She said, ‘Oh, that happened to me, too!’”
Payne recalled a relative of hers who “met up with his high school sweetheart at his 30th reunion and ended up getting married — so you never know,” she said with a smile.
In an excerpt from “Water Under the Bridge,” Payne writes about her nervous anticipation of meeting with her lost love:
“Was he checking his email as often as she was? Did he feel like a teenager, too? She was kicking herself for the silly reaction to him – the sudden leap of her heart, the grin on her face.”
The book also marks a time in Payne’s life when she wasn’t writing, but working as a graphic artist in marketing.
“People know me as the writer, the poet, this creative person,” she said. “Before this moment I wasn’t any of that. I wasn’t writing, I wasn’t creating.
“This is the moment that changed me,” she said.
Payne, a graphic designer who owns her own public relations firm, is well known on the shoreline — she has done publicity with her company, Words By Jen, for local organizations for years such as The Branford Land Trust, Branford Compassion Club, Branford Community Gardens and Guilford Art Center. She is an active member of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and the Branford Arts and Cultural Alliance, as well.
The former member of the Guilford Poets Guild also is known as a writer and continues to write poetry. She has written and published four other books LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, FLOSSING, and Waiting Out the Storm— under her own imprint of Three Chairs Publishing.
Payne handles nearly all aspects of publishing, and outsources where she needs to for editing and printing: “I have really good resources,” she said.
Payne purposely left a few pages of the book blank, with just the date printed on top — these are to show when the writer is awaiting a response to her email that did not come that day — lending a sense of time passing.
“This is designed to take you almost physically into the experience of reading the emails. Every email is on one page,” she noted.
Payne painstakingly chose the artwork for the cover, and found the artist, Sarah Zar, online at Etsy. Payne so loved her work that Zar will be exhibiting art in her show, “Bigger on the Inside” in the lobby at Guilford Art Center where a book-signing will take place.
“We’re excited to host this event and exhibition,” Maureen Belden, executive director of the Guilford Art Center, said in an email. “Jen is a wonderful writer, and happens to be GAC’s longtime graphic designer, an art form at which she also excels.”
Belden added, “We’re also looking forward to featuring the work of cover artist Sarah Zar, whose richly detailed images and objects complement Jen’s words.”
Another one of Payne’s favorite creative endeavors are her printed “zines,” called “Manifest (zine)” that she creates from the page up — from writing, layout and design.
Payne calls these zines “a hold-in-your-hands art installation,” which are “part mag, part artist book, part chapbook.” The booklets feature an arresting potpourri of writing, mixed-media collage work, photos, quotes and “pieces of creative whatnot” all produced on 80-pound matte paper that feels silky to the touch.
“It’s so much fun to work on these,” she enthused. Payne works on the physical mixed-media collages in a studio in her home; she does all the photography in addition to the graphic design.
“I have for a long time thought about doing art installations — like physical art gallery installations,” she said. But, she added, “I just didn’t have the time to do that.”
“I came up with the idea of doing these zines as a way to present the written word and the visual image in a tangible way,” she said.
Payne unabashedly loves printed books and materials. She seems to touch her zines like they are small treasures as she describes what she loves about print.
“It slows us down. It keeps up in the moment of holding a book and turning the pages and seeing the words in from of us. It’s a different experience than looking at your tablet or you looking at your computer screen with your email pinging and your social network binging over here — and you have all these distractions.”
And she has found fellow paper lovers: “Oh my goodness — yes! Book people. Zine people. We all love paper.”
“Some folks will tell you that print is dead, but I know many who would definitely beg to differ,” she added.
Payne will sign copies of her new book at Guilford Art Center from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, February 12. Guests can also enjoy an art exhibit by Sarah Zar, the artist who painted Hurricane Woman on the book’s cover. The event is free and open to the public. Masks are required, regardless of vaccination status. Seewww.guilfordartcenter.org for current COVID protocols. Snow date is February 19.
Dale and me at the launch of my first book, Look Up!, in 2014.
The first time I met Dale Carlson was in 1996 over coffee at the Hidden Kitchen in Guilford, Connecticut. She was the first person to call Words by Jen from the first yellow page ad I ever purchased.
And while we would both tell you that we were not really sure we really liked each other that day — and many days after that as well — we would go on to make almost 30 books together under the name of Bick Publishing House.
Ask me today what inspired me to write books and how I came to start my own publishing company, and I will tell you about the 25+ years that Dale and I worked together: the long hours of editing around her kitchen table, selecting art and cover designs, developing a house style, and promoting her books. All of the things I do for my clients’ books and my own books now, I learned from Dale.
But she wasn’t just a client. Dale was my long-time mentor and spiritual guide who helped me understand my family dysfunction and my mother’s mental illness, who taught me about meditation and the many faces of god. She showed by example that you can create a life on your own eccentric terms, and how it is to move around in the world in the body of writer.
Often, our approaches to life were vastly different — how we saw the world and how we coped as different as our backgrounds and ages. But in so many ways, we were kindred spirits who could complete each others sentences and easily nod in agreement more often than we expected.
We talked just recently about our work together and our long, enduring affection for one another. “It is so lovely,” she said, “to know how entwined we are! Love you, dear one.”
I love you, too, Dale.
Dale passed away on January 23, 2022. You can read more about her life here, or from her many books that are still available online.
The Garden State Parkway Rest Stop was half-way to my grandmother’s. We’d pull off the exit and shuffle into the rose-colored stalls of the Ladies Room.
Inside, near the pink-vinyl couch, a pull-knob vending machine sold hairnets, bobby pins, and rainhats neatly folded into pastel plastic boxes.
The Rest Stop burned down in ’91, years after we’d stop traveling as a family. But in my mind, it’s all still there — the soft golden light and tiled floors, the vending machine, my sister sleeping, Dad singing I Got You Babe to Mom in the front seat, his hand on her knee.
Saturday, February 12, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. BOOK SIGNING & ART EXHIBIT at Guilford Art Center 411 Church Street, Guilford, CT
• Book Signing with writer Jen Payne • “Bigger on the Inside,” exhibit by cover artist Sarah Zar • Free and open to the community
Connecticut writer Jen Payne has long been inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points — and her new book WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY tells of such a moment. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story — just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Told through a series of emails, WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is the story of two people who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts…and futures.
She thought about him often over the years. Looked him up online occasionally to see where he was and if he was all right. It wasn’t until last fall that she found his email address, and several months more before she got up the courage to write.
Influenced by the work of Brené Brown and a proponent of the bravery of storytelling, Payne says WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is “about having the courage to speak our truths; it’s about trust and vulnerability, and about the true blessings found when we open our hearts — come what may.”
What followed surprised her even more…
Please note, masks are required, regardless of vaccination status, please see current COVID protocols. Snow date: Saturday, February 19.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) will be available at the Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
Her specially curated exhibit will be on view in the GAC lobby throughout February.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
For sure there is a story to tell, of late-night clichés and coffee-stained romances there behind the counter of the midnight doughnut shop. She had written them in situ, on journal pages stained with raspberry-pink jelly: the dashing pirate, the rookie cop, the old war vet with a “crack in his cookie jar.” No doubt she learned more there than in any class at the university — or any day since. But could she find them again? Stir them up, let them proof and rise into something more than naïve schoolgirl impressions of the world and her life not yet begun?
In his clever, colorful book Zoom, illustrator Istvan Banyai invites the reader to see the bigger picture. Zoom in, zoom out – what do you see? what do you think you see? what are you really looking at? What are we really looking at in these warped and ever-changing days?
Come along as we zoom in and try to figure out what it all means.
The LEIXCON ZOOM issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a full color, 32-page booklet, fun inserts, and a curated Spotify playlist. Just $8 for one issue, or subscribe for $25 and get 4 issues. Click here to find out more or just …
The Annual Subscription rate of $25 includes four issues of MANIFEST (zine), and starts with the December issue LEIXCON ZOOM.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
I saw an elf bent over, studying the bark of a tree just up the path. “What are you looking at?” I asked, feeling curiouser and curiouser. “Mushrooms,” he told me, “these.” Then he bowed and plucked a bouquet from the log at my feet. Edible, he explained with a smile, so I asked “What are you making?” and he replied “Oyster mushrooms with a sherry cream sauce.” Mouths watering, we talked a bit about wild woods and food fare before we parted ways. Darn, I keep thinking, I forgot to drop my shoe. How will he ever find me?
Hi. It’s Jen again. Coming to you here at the end of another year all ramped up for resolutions and intentions and manifesting…NOT.
Did I tell you the story about my 2021 Vision Board? The one on which I pinned a photo of a roller coaster? OK, Universe, I meant “Try Exhilarating Fun Things” not the roller coaster that was the past 12 months. Seriously.
And about that 2021 word? EXPANSIVE? Nope. 2021 found me contracting and happily hiding behind the anonymity of COVID. You know: face masks, social distancing, and the like.
Granted, the Vision Board wasn’t a complete bust. I excelled at resting, for example. I began and maintained a twice daily meditation practice. I spoke my peace more, let go of more, and played more. And at the end of every day I was grateful for however it had unfolded.
But despite all of that, I am resistant to go through the process of Vision Boarding again. It sounds like a form of torture, doesn’t it? Especially here at the end of or beginning of another unpredictable pandemic year. Talk about roller coasters.
What? You mean no New Year’s Resolutions? No list of intentions? No lofty goals? Yes…and no. I have some great ideas, sure, but I’m also pretty happy with things just as they are right here in this moment.
I suspect my final two Amazon purchases of 2021 speak more to my intentions for the new year than any Vision Board ever could. So I’ll leave you with those for the time being, with wishes for a GOOD, CLEAN (and Healthy) 2022.
If I read as much as it feels like I didn’t, I suspect I would have surpassed my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal. I’m not really as far off as I thought…numerically, anyhow. According to my Goodreads 2021 report, I’ve read 35 books this year, 70% of my goal of 50 books.
But truth be told, my practice of reading is off by more than 70%. My attention span feels pulled thin by this pandemic; my sit-still tolerance more often taken up by Netflix binges instead of novels.
Still, when I did sink into a novel, I sunk deep. So deep I didn’t want to come up — and didn’t, for weeks. Think The Starless Sea and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, or The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley. I would gladly spend weeks again within their pages.
On my nightstand now, The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, author of one of my all-time favorite books A Tale for the Time Being. A good way to step into a new year I think — good book in hand, yes?
In my mind’s eye reading looks and feels like the yummy painting, The Moonlight Bed (above), by Jacek Yerka. A comfy spot, good lighting, creature comforts, and a big stack of books. May YOUR new year be filled with the same! Happy reading!
What I love most about MANIFEST (zine) is how each issue takes me — and ultimately you — on a journey of connected thoughts, images, and ideas. Thank you for joining me as we explore topics like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
The idea for my new issue — LEXICON ZOOM — came to me during a morning meditation. It has twisted and reshaped itself several times since, but I am pleased by the magical happenstances that took it in different directions. And I am delighted with the final piece…I hope you are too!
So ZOOM in and let’s see how “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
LEIXCON ZOOM includes a full color, 32-page booklet, fun inserts, and a curated Spotify playlist. Just $8 for one issue, or subscribe for $25 and get 4 issues. Click here to find out more or just …
The Annual Subscription rate of $25 includes four issues of MANIFEST (zine), and starts with the December issue LEIXCON ZOOM.
Part lit mag, part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the eclectic creation of writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on themes like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times. Each issue also includes a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
Much to the alarm of a grandmother, I picked up the baby and ran, leaving the Christmas celebrations in our wake.
Gathering festive crinolines around her tiny feet for warmth, we dashed out to the front yard, and I pointed up to the sharp winter sky. “Look, Little Miss, it’s the Christmas star!” And she laughed and giggled and leaned into me — a shared delight.
“Remember,” I said, “That’s the star the wise men followed.”
Who’s to say, of course, if it was just a plane as I was admonished. The spirit whispered love and hope and sweet small wonders.
I assure you, I did nothing to encourage him. I was simply kneeling trailside, counting petals on a flower — he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.
Then I heard him approach, footstepping through memories of trees scattered across the forest floor.
In his camouflage, I recognized fear and wonder, the wild and unpredictable nature of things, the magic of connection.
There was no amorous announcement to my ear, but a sound, a something sound I could not believe.
So as not to dash his hopes, I left quietly, wondering: do spiders really sing?
In Austin, she bought a rock star coat — black velvet with embroidered-flower sleeves and a faux-fur, mid-calf hem. In the dressing room, she laughed — it was a perfect fit.
“I’d never wear it,” she told the saleswoman. “Back home, we’re all L.L. Bean and Talbots.”
She bought it anyway, hung it by the door — her alter-ego, set in wait.
Then she met her new neighbors, Zach and Joe, walking their two chihuahuas.
“This is Amy and this is Pacho,” Zack said, “they have a cabaret act.”
When they invited her to their house-warming party, she knew exactly what to wear.
It was an all-points bulletin: MISSING IGUANA! Jake likes to roam, be on the lookout. Don’t chase!
I was a little busy when I first saw the news; parking my car outside the hotel was proving more difficult than it should and the sun was in my eyes. Maybe that’s why I had a hard timing believing them when I saw the iguana on the hotel lawn, sitting atop a purple octopus.
I didn’t think to ask how the octopus was managing out-of-water, I was actually deep in thought, wondering: what inspires an iguana to roam in the first place?
She wonders if he remembers the night he found that cat. Left to fend for itself in the winter woods, it died by the trail — as if it waited for someone to return. Collar with its name, no address or phone. Alone.
He carried it to the vet, along with his warped sense of humor. “Were you attached to it?” she mocked. “Yes, and then I abandoned it,” he replied — each of them poking fun at intimate confessions they’d shared. Achilles heels, laid bare.
Ironic, how easily they laughed at the inevitable.
In his absence now, she remembers…poor discarded “Love.”
MaryAnne and I were shopping on Canal Street in New York City. My polite “No thank you” replies to the onslaught of “Tiffany! Tiffany! You buy?” catcalls clearly indicated my novicity.
Thirteen blocks of brand-name idolatry was her pilgrimage, but I didn’t see any religious icons in the dimly lit backroom we entered solemnly.
Behind faux red velvet curtains, a thousand ordinary pocketbooks lined the walls; two Asian women exchanged furtive glances and slipped our twenties into small black pouches.
Later, in the car, I looked at my purchase ambivalently. “Is that a Coach bag?” MaryAnne gasped. “OH MY GOD!”
I think, maybe, it’s our hearts I keep meeting in my dreams. Not as often now as before, but still, they’re curled under a winter’s weight of blankets, not daring to move. Reading by the fire with coffee before the sun rises. Walking through the woods on familiar paths, old stories kicked around like leaves. Sitting on lawn chairs in the back yard before the big storm changed everything. It’s always he who reaches out for her hand, calls for her attention. And she who closes her eyes and breathes it all in — just one more time before I wake.
The born-again Christian man wore head-to-toe camouflage — a fabric used to disguise one’s appearance and to blend in with the surroundings. In nature, organisms use camouflage to sneak up on prey, to mask their identity and intentions. But his were clear. A warrior of god, proclaiming he is the way and the truth and the life. Praise God, he announces for all to see — while discussing guns and ammo with a friend in the post office lobby. They laugh, she thanks him for his advice, drives off in a car with a pro-life bumper sticker. Goes to stock up. Pray.
Looking for something different to give to friends who appreciate interesting and creative gifts? Then consider a subscription to Manifest (zine).
Each issue is packed full of writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of creative whatnot and a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies to discover along the way.
As Broken Pencil Magazine recently wrote in its review: “The result is essentially a portable contemporary art exhibit…[the] focus on physical quality (paper, image, colour assembly) alone makes it worth the price of admission.”
And now, just for the holidays, that price of admission includes a FREE gift issue!
Order a Manifest (zine) Gift Subscription, and we’ll send you the back issue of your choice along with a holiday card that acknowledges your 4-issue, 2022 subscription.
$25.00
Gift Subscription Manifest (zine) (Reg. Price $40)
I suppose I was a force to be reckoned with, even then at 19, when we stood in his driveway and I explained how my world was just bigger than his, drawing circles in the air like the orbits of planets. But he loved me then, loved how we could talk for hours when only the stars were listening, loved that I loved him back in those sweet moments we traveled around each other. In the end he was the only one with courage enough to ask me to marry … and I wonder what if maybe every blue moon.
Downstairs, along a neon-lit hall of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, there’s an Art-o-Mat. From it, for $5, you can purchase small, original works of art. But I confess, my fascination with Art-o-Mats is more about their past lives than their brilliant creativity. You see, their artwork resides in old cigarette vending machines, and with each purchase I am transported to the Route One Dairy Queen, 1984. That very first pack of cigarettes. The sound of quarters dropping, the brazen pull of the lever, the musical-mechanical delivery of Marlboros on the offering plate below. The light. The smoke. Magic.
For more about Art-o-Mats and where to find one near you, visit www.artomat.org.
I met a man in the woods. He was going for a walk with his frogs…two Sonoran Desert toads, actually, along the green trail on a rainy afternoon. He had them in a cat backback, facing forwards so they could see as they went past the pond and around to where the stream crosses the trail. “What if he lets them out,” I ruminated. “They would die, it’s too cold.” “But is it? Gloabal warming.” “What if he’s conditioned them? Got them used to colder weather.” “This is silly.” “More silly than a guy on a hike with pet toads?”
In my version of the 2020 apocalypse, I lit incense and whispered fervent prayers to Saint Anthony and Ganesh. I started meditating. He bought a gun safe. It’s as definite in his living space now as the altar to Buddha is in mine. This should not come as a surprise. I have loved on the cusp of the yin and yang all my life, and it has been no different with him these past seven years. Of the first gift I gave him, he wondered: Speartip? Pestle? Arrowhead? “It’s a heart shape rock,” I swooned, our end-time a forgone conclusion.
What a fun surprise to see this awesome display about zines at my local library! Special thanks to the folks at the James Blackstone Memorial Library and Katy McNicol, Associate Librarian for Development & Outreach, for doing such a great job on this…and for featuring MANIFEST (zine).
My favorite part of this display is the short essay WHY ZINES MATTER, from The Bindery website. I LOVE this!
WHY ZINES MATTER
Culturally and historically, zines have served as a powerful outlet for content considered to be too niche, risqué, or outside of the mainstream, in terms of more traditional/commercial forms of publication. A zine can be produced with the simplest of tools, and easily distributed low-to-the ground, outside capitalistic or potentially oppressive systems: amongst friends; in local gathering places or homes; at fests designed to celebrate them!
Zines provide a safe, independent platform of expression for underrepresented and marginalized voices: Black, Indigenous & People of Color, young people, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ(+) community, persecuted religious groups, and people with limited economic resources.
Essentially, zines can be a little hard to define—but that’s what makes them great: they’re a glorious mash-up of art, letters, story and emotion; just like the brains, hands and hearts of those who produce them. Their small, simple format belies their unique ability to speak creatively [and loudly] for even the softest voices. (And ain’t that worth celebrating.)
Stop by the library today to see this awesome display and to learn more about zines. PLUS you can borrow copies of MANIFEST (zine) to check it out (literally!) or…
This special “quarantine zine” features the words and images and thoughts within which we found REFUGE last year. The literal and figurative reflections, the comforting quotes and laugh-out-loud memes that kept us breathing all those long months, and helped us regain our sea legs when it seemed like the worst was behind us. Includes a full color, 36-page booklet, fun inserts, a curated Spotify playlist, and more! Cost: $6.00.
The Annual Subscription rate of $20 includes four issues of MANIFEST (zine), and starts with the September issue REFUGE: A Quarantine Zine.
Part lit mag, part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the eclectic creation of writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on themes like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times. Each issue also includes a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
There is a time to act, and a time to wait, to listen, to observe. Then understanding and clarity can grow. From understanding, action arises that is purposeful, firm, and powerful. — Charles Eisenstein
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king.” — Frank Sinatra
Like Frank, I have been many things. I’ve called myself a writer, journalist, author, poet, blogger. I am all of those things and, lately, seemingly none of them.
I’m not writing. I haven’t had any great ideas. When some bit of inspiration does trickle in, it lands with a thud at my feet and doesn’t even bounce.
Last week in the woods, a poem showed up. It was so insistent, I sat down on the trail and wrote words in my notebook, but by the time I got home, they were stale and soggy.
Is this writer’s block? A pandemic pause? A crisis of faith?
In my darkest moments, I worry I’m a hack, that readers have been humoring me all this time. That my lack of pedigree makes me and my work irrelevant. That I have overstayed my welcome and should just shut up and find something else to do — like paint my nails or make bundt cakes for the neighbors.
Oh, I know most of that isn’t true. In the light of day, anyhow. But at night, when I toss and turn and wonder about what comes next? I get nothing but pieces of soggy poems and dead ends.
That’s life?
I’ve been up and down and over and out and I know one thing Each time I find myself layin’ flat on my face I just pick myself up and get back in the race.
DON’T PANIC! This too shall pass. (I hope.)
So tell me, have you been here before? Experienced writer’s block or a creative pause? What did you do?
• CLICK HERE to read the complete Random Acts of Writing Fall 2021 Newsletter
Grammy-winning folk artist Nanci Griffith dies at 68 — The Guardian
I first heard Nanci Griffith while driving on the Boston Expressway one night. It was three in the morning, actually, the Expressway before the Big Dig, 30 degrees with the window down, and a beautiful, unnamed voice on the radio. She seemed a kindred spirit, someone who somehow understood the loneliness of that newly heartbroken and somewhat lost twenty-something.
I’ve been workin’ in corners all alone at night
Pullin’ down whiskey
Keepin’ my eyes away from the lights
I’ll never be a fool but I will gamble foolishly
I’ve never let go of love
Till I lost it in my dreams
The moment was out of place and time, and remains in my memory to this day more than 30 years later.
I held onto those lyrics in my mind for years before I found out who sang them. Hoping to hear them again, recognize her distinct voice that still haunted me.
When I met my friend DeLinda in 1991, she knew the song. Knew the musician, too — the two of them born and raised in the state I would come to know and love over the years.
Nanci Griffith, born July 6 (my birthday) a world away in Texas, was a singer, guitarist, and songwriter, who grew up in Austin. She was an up-and-coming folk/country folk singer when I first heard her that night in Boston. A popular guest on the PBS show Austin City Limits in the late 80s, she won a Grammy in 1994 for her album Other Voices, Other Rooms, and went on to produce more than 20 albums, including the first one I ever bought: One Fair Summer Evening.
I remember the day I found it — that first album — at a shopping mall record store mall, in the G bin. A cassette tape that played in my car for years and years, every song and note connecting to my heart in old soul ways I can’t explain.
One Fair Summer Evening sang me through that early unrequited love. Lone Star State of Mind connected me to my soul mate and my heart space. Flyer helped me grieve my father.
I saw Nanci in concert once, at Edgerton Park in New Haven. It was October 2001, a month after 9/11. To this day, I am not sure if I was more shocked by the sight of planes in the sky again or by the pure and crystal sound of her voice in the starry night air.
The New York Times wrote that Nanci Griffith “may just be one of America’s best poets.” She was, I think, many of my great loves in one voice…
I found your letter in my mailbox today
You were just checkin’ if I was okay
And if I miss you, well, you know what they say…
Just once… in a very blue moon
– – – – –
And when we die we say, we’ll
Catch some blackbirds wing
Then we will fly away to Heaven come
Some sweet blue bonnet spring
– – – – –
These days my life is an open book
Missing pages I cannot seem to find
These days your face
In my memory
Is in a folded hand of grace against these times
– – – – –
There’s a pale sky in the east, all the stars are in the west
Oh, here’s to all the dreamers, may our open hearts find rest
The wing and the wheel are gonna carry us along
And we’ll have memories for company, long after the songs are gone.
Back in the early 90s, I created a newsletter called The Latest News as a way to keep in touch with college friends and family. It had essays, quotes, photos, bits and pieces of personal news.
I didn’t know it was a “zine” until I read about the zine phenomenon and learned about Mike Gunderloy who reviewed and cataloged thousands of zines in his publication Factsheet Five. I sent him a copy of The Latest News and he reviewed it, and the next thing I knew — BAM! More than 350 people had subscribed and were reading my little 4-page, photocopied newsletter zine!
And then more BAM! The New York Times interviewed me about zines. And Tom Trusky, a professor at Boise State University invited me to be part of a zine exhibit called Some Zines: American Alternative & Underground Magazines, Newsletters & APAs. And later, The Latest News was featured in several retrospective books about the zine phenomenon: Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture and The World of Zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution.
Flash forward…I hate to say this, OMG…30 years, and BAM! MANIFEST (zine) showed up on my creative radar.
It’s been 12 months since I launched this new project, and I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the response. Folks from all over the planet have read about Divine Intervention and Cat Lady Confessions, they’ve discovered It’s About Time and what one does about Crickets. And they’ve been enthusiastic and supportive about what comes next.
I don’t know what comes next…or should I say which idea comes next, because I have a bunch! I hope you’ll stick around for the adventure.
Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the DIVINE INTERVENTION issue, I explore the concept of change and transition featuring music by Alanis Morissette, The Chicks, Tracy Chapman, Blind Melon, David Bowie, and many more. Take a listen to this powerful playlist now!
Issue #1, DIVINE INTERVENTION What is the force that moves us? Changes us? Propels us with such acceleration that we hardly recognize ourselves. Is it grief, heartbreak, indignation? Or joy, courage, determination? Perhaps it is DIVINE INTERVENTION — masked for our benefit as demon or angel or a hurried white rabbit who intrigues us just enough to move. To trip, fall, test the waters, grow up, expand, explore. And praise be to that because often, so very often, those big and unexpected transitions become our greatest and most profound adventures.
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acetone transfers, acrylic paints, Avery labels, collaged elements, color copies, colored pencils, gold star stickers, Golden gel medium, hand-cut templates, hand-drawn fonts, hand-dyed paper, handmade papers, handmade rubber stamps, ink jet copies, laser prints, metal arrow, mirror labels, original photography, paper napkin, pigment inks, poetry, watercolor paints, with cameo appearances by Sir Isaac Newton Laws of Motion, Dirty Dancing, Star Trek, Solbeam, Eadweard Muybridge, Lewis Carroll, Sir John Tenniel, Alice, The Principals of Cartography, and the Serenity Prayer.
Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the CAT LADY CONFESSIONS issue, I explore all things cat, with songs by artists like Dee-Lite, Peggy Polk, Psapp, Alexis Saski, Lee Ann Womak, and Janet Jackson. It’s purr-fect! Take a listen now!
Issue #2, CAT LADY CONFESSIONS Poor Cat Lady. She always gets a bum rap. No one ever makes fun of Ernest Hemingway, whose Key West home was filled with cats — and he of a certain age. His strapping action figure includes a typewriter and a shotgun. Cat Lady? She gets six cats, bed head, and a ratty bathrobe. Doesn’t she earn points for opening her heart wide open? for loving even the most unlovable? for her strong, independent nature; Her patience and acceptance? for her superpower ability to nurture trust, stillness, solitude, balance? This issue of MANIFEST (zine) explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide.
POEMS • The Obscurity of This Week’s Words • Bury Me in Yellow • Serenity • Chasing • Note to Self: Smell Roses • The Anatomy of 3 a.m. • Sunday Haiku • Cat Meditation
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acrylic paints, appropriation art, collaged elements, color copies, color scans, colored markers, colored pencils, cracker box, crazy cat lady action figure, Golden gel medium, hand-drawn fonts, hand-dyed paper, handmade cat mask, handmade linoleum block print, handmade papers, ink jet copies, laser prints, latex animal cat head mask, original photography, pigment inks, poetry, ribbon, rubber stamps, soap wrapper, sparkle paint, vintage photographs, watercolor paints, with cameo appearances by Cassastamps, Vikki Dougan , Matt Fry, Carl Larsson, Nina Leen, Pietro Longhi, Amedeo Modigliani, Mary O’Connor, Pixelins by Dana, Eckhart Tolle, Hattie Watson , Helen M. Winslow, and special thanks to Fuzzy, Calico, Crystal, Emily, CJ, Mousse, Little Black Kitty, and Lola.
MANIFEST ZINE Issue #3, It’s About Time! Poems & More by Jen Payne
We humans sure are creative with time, aren’t we? This arbitrary turning clocks backward or forward twice a year, assigning time to zones and lines and frames. I myself try to trick time, setting clocks randomly wrong and always fast as if I can somehow control the hours, beat the Kobayashi Maru of time. Even Albert Einstein said time is an illusion — “a stubbornly persistent illusion” — that time and space are merely “modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” Of course, if you think too hard on things like that you end up down rabbit holes and worm holes…want to come along?
Then check out the next issue of MANIFEST (zine). It’s About Time this time — time travel, time loops, time passing — a 28-page, full-color book filled with artwork, photos, poetry, and a curated Spotify playlist just for you. Cost: $6.00.
POEMS • Time Peace • Moonwalk Writer • Time Flies • Time Traveler • There is No Synonym for Reunion • This Affliction of Longing • Shape-Shifter, Time-Shifter Crow • Black Bird Haiku • Missing Banksy
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acrylic paints, appropriation art, collaged elements, color copies, color scans, colored markers, Dymo labels, ephemera, essays, Golden gel medium, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, mixed-media collage, one sci-fi geek, original photographs, pigment inks, poetry, postage stamps, postcard art, rubber stamp art, time travelers, vintage magazine pages, vintage photos, vintage postcard, and watercolor paint, with thanks to the Leo Baeck Institute, Joy Bush, Paul Delvaux, Albert Einstein, Esther Elzinga of StudioTokek, Rowland Emmet, the Everett Collection, Michael Jackson, Julien Pacaud, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Robinson, Sir John Tenniel, and Rudolph Zallinger.
Issue #3, It’s About Time! 28-page, full-color 7.5 x 5.5 Cost: $6.00
Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the CRICKETS issue, I had fun playing off the themes of silence, finding one’s voice, and creating from the heart. It features an eclectic set of songs by artists like Disturbed, Grace Carter, Barry Manilow, John Mayer, Natasha Bedingfield, and Brandi Carlile. Take a listen now!
IMAGE: Midsummer Frolic, British Library Digital Library, When Life is Young, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, 1894.
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”
With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.
Issue #4, Crickets 24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00
If you are a dreamer, come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer… If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! come in!
— Shel Silverstein
Indeed, if you are a dreamer, a wisher, a magic bean buyer…then you must visit THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center. It’s truly one of the most unique shopping destinations, offering a selection of contemporary American crafts and jewelry handmade by local artists and others from across the country. You’ll find works in glass, metal, ceramics, wood, fiber, paper, toys and much more.
Much more…like copies of MANIFEST (zine)!
I’m excited to say that MANIFEST (zine) can now be purchased at THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center, along with copies of my books and postcards. Check it out!
When I published my first book, LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, I imagined a complementary art installation: framed photos from the book, poems printed large and hung like tapestries, a CD of woodland sounds in the background.
I had other ideas, too. (I still do.)
A show at New Haven’s Kehler Liddell Gallery (2017) came close. “Random Acts of Writing: Common Ground” — featuring three of my poems and one photograph — was included in INAUGURATION NATION, an open forum exhibit that responded to the political and social climate of the time.
That same year, large framed photos from my second book, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were featured in the exhibit WHERE THE WHOLE UNIVERSE DWELLS at Perspectives, The Gallery at Whitney Center.
You might recognize the theme of my very first art installation effort. Random Acts of Writing: Pushing Time was included in the SHUFFLE & SHAKE exhibit at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery in 2016. Its three poems and wall clock all appear in MANIFEST (zine): It’s About Time.
You see, it turns out, a lot of my “other ideas” fit neatly into the format that is a zine. Zines, as explained on the Wikipedia page dedicated to this phenomenon, “cover broad topics including fanfiction, politics, poetry, art & design, ephemera, personal journals, social theory, intersectional feminism, single-topic obsession” and more. They have such cultural relevance, there are dedicated zine archives/libraries at Barnard College, the University of Iowa, Duke University, the Tate Museum, the British Library, Harvard University, and at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
So many publications, so many topics, so many ideas! Check it out yourself and stay tuned!
Photo from the Sojourner Truth Library’s Zine Library at the State University of New York, New Paltz
LET’S START WITH: WHAT IS A ZINE? According to Wikipedia, a zine — pronounced zeen — is a small circulation, self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier. It has no defined shape or size, and may contain anything from poetry, prose, and essays, to comics, art, or photography.
A zine is a multi-purposed publication form that has deep roots in political, punk, feminist, artistic, and other subculture communities. Original zinesters are rumored to include Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Margaret Fuller.
SO THEN, WHAT IS MANIFEST (zine) ? Let’s consider…
MANIFEST (noun): a list of contents
MANIFEST (verb): to make a record of; to set down in permanent form
MANIFEST (adjective): easily understood or recognized by the mind
Then see alsoMANIFESTO (noun): a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer;
and see also, especially, MANIFESTING (noun) : the creative process of aligning with the energy of the Universe to co-create an experience that elevates your spirit and the spirit of the world;
at which point, you might begin to understand… Manifest (zine)!
It was rather serendipitous last year that the first issue of MANIFEST (zine) came out just in time for International Zine Month! An auspicious debut and an amazing first year! So, today we celebrate! Happy Birthday MANIFEST (zine)…and many more!
Thanks to Alex Wrek at Stolen Sharpie Revolution, we’re celebrating INTERNATIONAL ZINE MONTH! Stay tuned for lots of good zine things and consider these ways to celebrate throughout the month of July!
Maybe for breakfast you have one egg and toast without butter, and coffee without cream,
and maybe you swallow down the bitter truth of it with a token smile,
grab your bag from the hallway table, and escape into the crisp, cold morning air
breathe……….breathe for a while
because you know at supper, after work, you’ll only have one glass of wine, if that
and you’ll take those things you brought home with you today — the snips and pieces of passion — and tuck them back into that bag, that safe hiding place until tomorrow
so it’s easier tonight to be one-note and unobjectionable,
small and of no consequence to anyone’s conceit
so it’s easier to say no, no, no, it’s OK, and this is enough,
when what you wanted to say was
“I’ll have orange marmalade and butter, please, and sweet cream that whips to a peak, and three chilled glasses of Rosé.”
“I want to get up on that dance floor, darling, and make a complete fool of myself because one of us is leaving soon, and we won’t get this chance again!”
This morning, I stopped along a narrow trail, enveloped by the sweet scents of honeysuckle and spicebush. Memories of last night’s rain skipped from leaf to leaf, while damselflies danced and a lone catbird sang. From branches sixty feet above, pollen drifted down like snow, illuminated in the first light of day. Oh the bees, their sunrise fête in blooming vines, and mine — oh mine — below.
In her heartbreakingly wonderful book This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart, photographer Susannah Conway explains that writing is “a vocation that pays out twice: first to you as the detective unraveling your heart and then again to the reader who consumes your work.”
This echoes a conversation I had recently with my dear friend Judith who reminded me that the life-changing moment for a writer is not necessarily being published, or even being read. The life-changing moment is the creative spark, that white hot moment of inspiration.
The rest, as they say, is gravy. More or less… (Read More)
One of my favorite things about the work I get do to for my books and zines is the sleuthing. Hunting down random (often misappropriated) quotes, getting permissions to reprint, finding hard copy proof. Evidence for my readers — and myself — that I have done due diligence to make what you hold in your hands valid and true to the best of my abilities.
As a student of English literature and journalism, and as a life-long writer and citer, I feel an incredible responsibility to validate as many of my references as possible. To remind my readers, for example, that it was Henry Stanley Haskins who wrote “What lies behind us and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us,” not Ralph Waldo Emerson or Gandhi, and not Buddha.
When I was writing LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, in which I used that quote, I actually spent six months researching and properly attributing quotes. That task included rabbit holes like the quote sourced to a 1970s motivational poster printed by an academic publisher in Texas written by a retired social worker in Oak Park, Illinois.
I get a little geeky when it comes to that kind of thing. Like a dog with a bone. Truth be told, I love it as much Alice loved going on her adventures!
My most recent adventure involved Leonard Cohen and a 60-year-old book.
While I was working on the spring issue of MANIFEST (zine): CRICKETS, I found a beautiful poem by Cohen called “Summer Haiku.” The poem appeared in his book The Spice-Box of Earth of which there was a rare, limited edition hardcover edition that included illustrations by Frank Newfeld, a renowned Canadian illustrator and book designer.
There were several copies of the book available online starting at around $200, which is a tad higher than my budget for the zine project. Less expensive copies did not include the Newfeld illustrations, and by this point in the adventure those were key.
I did find and purchase issue number 56 of The Devil’s Artisan: A Journal of the Printing Arts that featured Newfeld’s work on delicious, offset-printed, antique laid pages. It even included a letterpressed color keepsake of Newfeld’s illustration for Cohen’s poem “The Gift,” which appears in The Spice-Box of Earth.
I went on to find a bookseller in Canada, Steven Temple, who owns a copy of the 1961 edition. Searching through the 10,000 books he attends to in his home-based bookshop, he found and took the photo of “Summer Haiku” that appears in CRICKETS.
Of course, I was still curious. What did the rest of the book look like? How many poems were there? How many illustrations? How could I see it? Read it?
My local library did not have a copy of the book, nor did Google Books. According to a 2016 article in Toronto Life, the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is “home to 140 banker’s boxes worth of Cohen’s archives” including “handwritten notes and letters, portraits, CDs, paintings, novel manuscripts, books, early drafts of his poetry and lyrics, and even art he made when he lived as a Buddhist monk.” Would it include a digital copy of The Spice-Box of Earth?
It did not.
Nor did the online Library and Archives of Canada or the Canadian Electronic Library. But on the Hathi Trust Digital Library website there was a helpful “Find in a Library” link that, when clicked, revealed some familiar and within-driving-distance names: Yale University, Wesleyan University, Connecticut College.
Lightbulb! I immediately emailed a woman I know at our local library, Deb Trofatter, who is the Associate Librarian for Reference Services and Technology, and asked…by any chance…can you get a copy of…
Which is how, on May 15, I came to have in my hands a 60-year-old hardcover copy of Leonard Cohen’s The Spice-Box of Earth to savor and share.
NOTES & LINKS
• The Spice-Box of Earth, illustrated by Frank Newfeld. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1961).
Alice photo from a Fortnum & Mason (London) holiday window display, possibly 2006. Photographer not found yet.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure. Click here to order your copy today!
The storm took so much it’s difficult to consider — gone the familiar, the known path. Feet so sure there was no need to gauge progress. It was how I became present again, how I stepped back in the moment.
It was where I could breathe, let go, release my rooted stride. Slough off thoughts. Embrace the solitude with just a heartbeat and birdsong for company.
But her wide canopy of solace is gone now, and I have been hobbled.
Those sacred spaces of breath and respite are changed.
And so am I.
So I take a different path this morning and it comforts me.
It whispers…
This rabbit will caretake the old path.
This turtle, hopeful, lays its eggs. As does the robin.
Part of this snake is here but its heart has moved forward,
and this spider writes her poems in the spaces left behind.
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”
With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.
Issue #4, Crickets 24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00
Volume S of our 1976 Encyclopedia Britannica collection did not have much to say about the Spinning Jenny. What it was: an early machine for spinning wool or cotton. Who created it: James Hargreaves from Lancashire, England. When: 1764. And a short sentence about its significance in the industrial revolution.
I can still see the two-sentence paragraph description and its line drawing of the Spinning Jenny sitting on the page. What I could not see at the time was the 500-word essay being requested by my 6th grade social studies teacher Mr. Jacobson.
So I did what any good writer would do. I improvised!
What is a spinning wheel used for? How does it work? Where does the wool and cotton come from? What was life like in Lancashire? What was life like in 1764? Who was James Hargreaves? What was the industrial revolution?
Et voila! Essay.
Pulling from different sources, I spun together that essay and earned an impressive A- for my effort.
Ironically, one of the reasons the Spinning Jenny was so important is that it allowed a worker to use multiple spindles of material in the forming of thread.
Fast forward 40-something years, and I am still spinning. Still pulling from multiple sources to form threads of thought that get woven into my writing and creative work.
I love the experience of that process. Going down the rabbit hole of “what do we have here?” and finding winding paths to all sorts of unexpected discoveries.
I love the organic nature of those discoveries — what reveals itself as I walk along those paths. A bit like Alice, I suppose, wandering and Wondering in that strange, unexplored land.
I love the challenge of digging deeper to find some key piece of information that completes the story. I love doing research and following breadcrumbs.
The best part, of course, is when it can all finally come together. Tie off all of the threads, weave the ends together. See the conclusion of the hard work: the poem, the book, the zine, this essay.
I suppose, if you think about it, that make me a Spinning Jenny, wouldn’t you say?
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” Isaac Newton said.
“You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought, ‘I release the need for this in my life’,” author Wayne Dyer said, some 300 years later.
I don’t think either of them were talking about keys…but I am.
I was walking through the woods the other day, thinking about the things we carry with us. The physical things—like keys — and the less tangible, like memories. The things we carry with us can be heavy — grudges or a responsibility. Or they can be light — kind words or the lyrics of a favorite song…
The wind is the whisper of our mother the earth The wind is the hand of our father the sky The wind watches over our struggles and pleasures The wind is the goddess who first learned to fly.
Often, the things we carry with us are no longer necessary.
For example, the key chain I carry holds 11 keys, three key fobs, and bar-coded tags for access to my library, AAA, and mile-long receipts from CVS.
Of those keys, I use three: house, car, post office box. One opens the door to a friend’s house, but I can’t remember the last time I used any of the other ones. That’s seven keys — or about four ounces — I carry around with no purpose.
Imagine if the non-tangible things carried weight as well? An ounce for that grudge, another for that resentment. Two ounces for that grief, and two more for that heartache. Perhaps they do.
But can I “release the need for this in my life,” I wonder as I walk? Can I let go of those old things that no longer serve a purpose? Can I leave stale habits and welcome new ones?
If I want to change things, according to Newton, I must do something: every object tends to remain in its state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.
If I “release the need,” and there is an equal and opposite reaction…will I manifest positive change? What new doors will open?
And won’t I need a new key?
Windsong, John Denver
If you like this poem, you’ll LOVE the Divine Intervention issue of MANFEST (zine)
Emily Fletcher, author of the awesome book Stress Less, Accomplish More: Meditation for Extraordinary Performance, writes “When we create something — whether it’s dinner for a friend, a presentation at work, a self-published memoir, or a new company — we’re stepping into the unknown and making ourselves vulnerable by putting into concrete terms something we had nurtured in our mind.”
MANIFEST (zine) is just that.
Emerging from creative inspirations and the solitude of the pandemic, this colorful, eclectic publication features my own writing and artwork, along with thoughts and images from a host of guest artists and authors, all dancing loosely around themes like change, time, and silence. The result — what has been manifest especially for you — is a thought-full, tactile journey of consideration and contemplation.
Curious? You can buy individual issues below for just $6.00 or SUBSCRIBE now and get 4 issues for $20.00.
The newest issue — Crickets — should be ready in June. I can’t wait for you to see it! Until then, sending wishes for good inspiration and steady health!
Love,
Jen Payne
Writer / Poet / Artist
Three Chairs Publishing
Issue #4, CRICKETS
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” Issue #4 of MANIFEST (zine) presents a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery.
PREORDER – Ships June 1
24-Page, Color, 4.25 x 5.5 Booklet, curated Spotify playlist, $6.00 BUY NOW!
Issue #3, IT’S ABOUT TIME
We humans sure are creative with time, aren’t we? This arbitrary turning clocks backward and forward twice a year, assigning time to zones and lines and frames. I myself try to trick time, setting clocks randomly wrong and always fast as if I can somehow control the hours, beat the unwinnable Kobayashi Maru of time. Even Albert Einstein said time is an illusion — “a stubbornly persistent illusion” — that time and space are merely “modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” Of course, if you think too hard on things like that you end up down rabbit holes and worm holes…want to come along?
Issue #2, CAT LADY CONFESSIONS
Poor Cat Lady. She always gets a bum rap. No one ever makes fun of Ernest Hemingway, whose Key West home was filled with cats — and he of a certain age. His strapping action figure includes a typewriter and a shotgun. Cat Lady? She gets six cats, bed head, and a ratty bathrobe. Doesn’t she earn points for opening her heart wide open? for loving even the most unlovable? for her strong, independent nature; Her patience and acceptance? for her superpower ability to nurture trust, stillness, solitude, balance? This issue of MANIFEST (zine) explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide.
Issue #1, DIVINE INTERVENTION
What is the force that moves us? Changes us? Propels us with such acceleration that we hardly recognize ourselves. Is it grief, heartbreak, indignation? Or joy, courage, determination? Perhaps it is DIVINE INTERVENTION — masked for our benefit as demon or angel or a hurried white rabbit who intrigues us just enough to move. To trip, fall, test the waters, grow up, expand, explore. And praise be to that because often, so very often, those big and unexpected transitions become our greatest and most profound adventures.
I had, for years, chosen words carefully, like one might apples in the January bin — hold, look, turn, feel for the bruises beforehand.
And I set them out carefully on this paper we call a screen so there was time to savor my meaning — hold, look, turn, let down your guard, love.
But that proved as elusive as the worms that burrow in — making scar tissue of sweet, soft flesh, unseen beneath the skin where bruises bloom and hearts stay broke.
He ran, he told me, through the corridors of Heathrow the framed Monet under a free arm, it, his grand gesture to the unrequiting, me
Monet’s water lilies The Water Lily Pond (to be precise) its soft curved bridge symbolic, perhaps, of his efforts to cross over from friends to something more colorful, shall we say?
For the untrained eye it gave the impression of love, but look closely to see a thousand random dots, their missed connections a terminal romance.
As the sun rose, he whispered, I’ll come back if I’ve left anything then packed and went as quickly as he did that first time some ten years before. It was a fishing trip then — a last chance visit with family before graduation and grad school — this time a funeral, his uncle. No lingering, not like other years, when we dozed dream-wrapped late into the morning……..loved. But with New Jersey such a long ride from our reverie, he left before we had a chance to… ……..a chance to say anything more than
Same time next year? Should I bake a cake? I’ll come back if I’ve left anything.
I prayed he left more than a spoon, held my breath in pregnant pause for weeks until it was clear there was nothing to come back to……..not even the spoon which still makes its way into coffee, stirs up the memory of that morning and what might have been……..afterall had he left anything more.
National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture. Click here to learn more.
Here at Random Acts of Writing, I’ll be writing a poem a day at part of NaPoWriMo…or attempting to, at least, muse willing. Join me? Or check out these other…
Record yourself reading a poem, and share why you chose that work online using the hashtag #ShelterinPoems. Be sure to tag @poetsorg on twitter and instagram!
The S.S. Pussiewillow II is a whimsical machine by inventor-sculptor Rowland Emett, who was known worldwide for his intricate machines that whirr, spin, flash, sway, and quiver, going nowhere, doing nothing, poking fun at technology. It appeared on display circa 1980 in the Flight in the Arts gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, complemented by music composed and performed on antique harpsichords by Trevor Pinnock. This indescribable kinetic work became a favorite of adults and children alike. The object was taken off display in 1990, but visitors with long memories still ask about it.
From the postcard:
The S.S. Pussiewillow II, a Personal Air and Space Vehicle of unique Stern-wheel configuration, with Flying Carpet attributes, by Rowland Emett, O.B.E. An adapted Kashmir carpet is enmeshed within a light Jupiter-ring, which undulates and spins to provide False Gravity. Twelve variable-speed Zodiacs spin up to ensure activation of suitable Sign, to nullify adverse contingencies. In combined Control Module and Hospitality Room, the Pilot, accompanied by his Astrocat, pedals lightly (aided by helium-filled knee-caps) to energize Stern Paddle-wheel. There is an elevated Power-boost G.E.O.R.G.E. (Geometric Environmental OARiented Row-Gently Energizer), and a Solar Transfuser for trapping random sun-rays. Module is shown in open attitude, revealing possible Extraneous Being being won-over by Afternoon Tea, and toasted tea-cakes.
“A memory I wasn’t entirely sure was real, of finding something that seemed completely but wonderfully out of place in the National Air and Space Museum,” says the person who took the video below, and I completely agree. Like them, I too, remember wandering around the Air and Space Museum and finding myself in this magical room with its dancing machine and fantastical music. I’ve kept the postcard (above) tucked away ever since — what fun to revisit the memory all these years later!
Postcard and text from the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 1981
If you like this magical creation, you’ll LOVE the It’s About Time issue of MANIFEST (zine). On sale now!
MANIFEST ZINE Issue #3, It’s About Time! Poems & More by Jen Payne
We humans sure are creative with time, aren’t we? This arbitrary turning clocks backward or forward twice a year, assigning time to zones and lines and frames. I myself try to trick time, setting clocks randomly wrong and always fast as if I can somehow control the hours, beat the Kobayashi Maru of time. Even Albert Einstein said time is an illusion — “a stubbornly persistent illusion” — that time and space are merely “modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” Of course, if you think too hard on things like that you end up down rabbit holes and worm holes…want to come along?
Then check out the next issue of MANIFEST (zine). It’s About Time this time — time travel, time loops, time passing — a 28-page, full-color book filled with artwork, photos, poetry, and a curated Spotify playlist just for you. Cost: $6.00.
POEMS • Time Peace • Moonwalk Writer • Time Flies • Time Traveler • There is No Synonym for Reunion • This Affliction of Longing • Shape-Shifter, Time-Shifter Crow • Black Bird Haiku • Missing Banksy
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acrylic paints, appropriation art, collaged elements, color copies, color scans, colored markers, Dymo labels, ephemera, essays, Golden gel medium, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, mixed-media collage, one sci-fi geek, original photographs, pigment inks, poetry, postage stamps, postcard art, rubber stamp art, time travelers, vintage magazine pages, vintage photos, vintage postcard, and watercolor paint, with thanks to the Leo Baeck Institute, Joy Bush, Paul Delvaux, Albert Einstein, Esther Elzinga of StudioTokek, Rowland Emmet, the Everett Collection, Michael Jackson, Julien Pacaud, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Robinson, Sir John Tenniel, and Rudolph Zallinger.
Issue #3, It’s About Time! 28-page, full-color 7.5 x 5.5 Cost: $6.00
As soon as I heard the tone of your voice
I knew I would change the story.
Right there, sitting on the step,
with the phone still warm against my ear,
I said out loud “It will not end this way.”
I never looked back.
I just cut a hole through the wall,
and changed the language of doors.
One of my all-time favorite food combinations is banana and peanut butter. On a sandwich or by themselves? Yum!
Other folks love partnering ice cream with French fries, cheddar cheese with apple pie, pizza and ranch dressing. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, taste on his or her palate, I suppose.
I was thinking on all of that as I watched BBC chef Nadiya Hussain’s show Time to Eat recently. You may know Nadiya from her wide-eyed, winning performance on the Great British Bake-off, or from her rise to fame in the British culinary-entertainment world.
She’s charming to watch and a smart and resourceful cook in the kitchen. The premise of Time to Eat is that it offers “stress-free recipes designed to help us all save time and calm our hectic lives.” Who isn’t looking for that?
Nadiya also brings some interesting new flavors to the table — combining her British and Bangladeshi heritage in many of her recipes. Like her recipe for a Zesty Marmalade Haddock Traybake.
I know, I know. Marmalade and fish? But trust me…
The combination of sundried tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette liven up the potatoes. The marmalade and dill combine deliciously and make a palette-pleasing topping for the fish.
I actually did use “tinned potatoes” — a.k.a. canned — because it’s what the recipe called for, and they were not at all disappointing. I added asparagus with the potatoes for some green, and used a meaty cod filet instead of haddock.
The end result was super tasty – and not nearly as weird as ranch dressing on pizza, I can promise you. It’s one of those easy-to-prepare-but-feels-super-special kind of meals. Give it a try!
You can find more of Nadiya on Netflix. The Big Family Cooking Showdown is not nearly as annoying as American food competitions, really, but you might prefer to settle into the 7 episodes of Time to Eat, or the 8 of Nadiya Bakes (Mango coconut cake anyone?)
In the pieces of memory
and scraps of conversations
transcribed in situ
I will tell you about
the headless groom
and the dead dog,
about the failure of Saint Raphael
and the irony of the phrase
“you could get hit by a bus.”
I’ll tell you the 15,000 words that broke me
and the ones that almost put me back together
until I realized my heart was better
cracked wide-open like that anyhow.
Now all I need to do is type
Grayson Books announces the publication of Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis. Edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson, this poetry anthology includes work by Connecticut poets, including Guilford Poets Guild members Gwen Gunn, Patricia Horn O’Brien, and Jen Payne.
Each poet writes of their relationships with the earth in a time of climate crisis. The scope of the poems goes far beyond Connecticut to the whole ecosystem we humans share. “It’s hard to believe that the poems in this essential collection all come out of a single small state,” writes Chase Twichell, author of Things As It Is and Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been. “But make no mistake; these are not poems about Connecticut. They are poems about the world—our one and only world—and the damage we inflict upon it. Ranging from expressions of profound love for and intimacy with the earth and its many creatures to grief and rage at our species’ self-destructive blindness, each poem is a testament to our planet’s preciousness and a grave warning of its fragility. Waking Up to the Earth is a resounding wake-up call.”
Guilford Poets Guild poems include “Of Stones and Time,” by Gwen Gunn, “Getting to Prayer,” by Patricia Horn O’Brien, and “When I Call it the Zombie Apocalypse, Neither of Us Is as Scared as We Should Be,” by Jen Payne.
Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis is a 138-page paperback book available through Ingram Book Company, Grayson Books, from local booksellers or from amazon.com for $20.00. For more information, contact gconnors@graysonbooks.com or visit www.graysonbooks.com.
Many years ago, I attended a local chamber of commerce dinner. I was a board member back then, a committee chair and such. Around the table sat clients and colleagues in standard business attire: blues and blacks, a few pops of red, maybe a dark LL Bean green. I wore black pants and a rust-colored jacket that had a turquoise sequined-and-beaded mermaid on the back. “Are you an artist?” a state senator asked when he shook my hand, and I smiled.
I had just re-discovered my Creative Spirit, and she and I were rockin’ that mermaid blazer with much more pizazz than I ever rocked a bored meeting. I think Brené Brown would call that pizazz “authenticity”…
• Brené Brown’s 10 Guideposts for Wholehearted Living
• Random Acts of Writing Anniversary!
• MANIFEST (Zine) #3: It’s About Time
• Zombie Poetry & More
Make sure you click around. With hidden links, videos, and rabbit holes to explore, this Spring 2021 enewsletter is meant to be savored slowly. So grab a cup of coffee — or a slice of cake — and enjoy!
No matter what we think
or how it feels,
we don’t really break break,
even our break downs
imply eventual turn ups.
Oh sure, we bend a little,
(bend over backwards, too)
fold under pressure sometimes
lean into the pain
collapse with exhaustion
appear to come apart at the seams
and yet…
And yet.
Upon this holy ground of spirit
there is still room to breathe,
we are not damaged, we are flexible
we are not falling apart, we are rebuilding
we are not broken or undone.
By the very fibers of our being,
we are strength and grace
unyielding.
randomactsofwriting.net 