I was surprised and pleased to receive an email from Kristen at Visual Verse last week asking me if I would like to be one of the featured poets for July. She sent me the image, by Maria Victoria Rodriguez, and I sent her back my poem. You can see both here.
Thanks Kristen!
K. 
Nice! I just read your poem. Congratulations on being a featured artist for Visual Verse in July.
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Thanks Jade. It’s always good to be acknowledged.
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You are very welcome. I get an email from VV once a month but haven’t submitted anything yet. Maybe one of these days…
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I don’t submit every month, but I always think about it. Sometimes there’s too much else going on.
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Congratulations! That’s quite an accolade! I enjoyed the poem too. Argentine is one of those places I’d like to visit to see how the Italian and Spanish cultures slot together and where the indigenous populations fit in.
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Thanks Jane. I think the entire world is blended now, but the Americas in particular. In Central and South America the original populations are much more prominent in the larger culture than in North America though. We managed much better to suppress the native population.
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Yes, the integration of native or colonised people has been difficiult (or unacceptable) in most places. What’s making it difficult now is this identity splintering. Especially on religious grounds. People who used to want to integrate now insist on their right to be different and apart. It’s going to blow up in the faces of those who encourage it. We stand or fall together, not in our little boxes.
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I agree. Of course it’s easy for me to say when I have no group to cling to. Most Americans are so mixed it’s silly for them to pretend to be pure anything. At least after a generation or two. (K)
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You do have a group though. You’re white privilege, cis, possibly other things verging on the fascist, who knows? We all have a sticker as far as some people are concerned.
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OWL–old white lady. Could probably put crazy in front of it in some circles.
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Owls are wonderful creatures. Crazy or otherwise. Old white lady is a good description of a barn owl. They scream too.
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I think barn owls are beautiful. I’m out of practice with my screaming though.
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To scream like a barn owl needs special vocal chords, I think. Yelling has to replace it for humans.
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So good, Kerfe ❤
You know, this might be a minor thing, but I really love how you just end stanzas where you feel they should end, regardless of how they compare in length to other stanzas. It just seems so natural that it wows me.
-David
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Thanks David. I don’t really think that much about the structure of free verse. Although I avoid lines that are much longer than all the others. I think mostly about the way the words fit together, both as a line by themselves and as they flow into one another. I think that’s a result of doing Japanese poerty forms. Where you are always supposed to consider both aspects.
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Ohhh, most excellent and quite an honour! And I love your delivery. I got the mail in that this month’s Visual Verse is open but I quickly closed it in case I write my piece, so that I don’t get distracted by the three featured authors. So I didn’t see that one of the is you! 🙂 And I’d by happy to see that!!
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Thanks Manja, I know what you mean. I never like to read any other responses to a prompt until I’ve done at least a rough draft of my own.
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Well done, Kerfe. I like your interpretation. Congrats.
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Thanks Ken. It was a pleasant surprise.
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Congratulations, Kerfe! What a honor! I enjoyed your poem, and it is a perfect response to the image.
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Thanks Merril. And the image is timely too I think.
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is it greedy for me to think that one of your artworks will be a future VV prompt muse?
well-deserved, and I concur with the other sentiments. ~
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Thanks M. I don’t know how they pick their art, but I’ve been submitting art for Rattle’s Ekphrastic challenge for years to no avail (none of my poems have been chosen either…) (k)
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Congratulations Kerfe! It was lovely to read your poem and see you featured here.
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Thanks Ingrid. It always feels good to be acknowledged. (K)
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