Yesterday I went to see a talk on poetry, literacy and bodily experience. It's something that's difficult to grasp from a lecture though. Luckily, the speaker also read some of her poetry, accompanied by a musician. There can be a music even just in the reading (the rythm, or even just the sounds of the words) but when the music of the reading and the music of the, er, um, music, work together, a new music emerges to be lived in and to live in the listener. Something like that.

One exercise we were asked to do was to write in reaction to a button:

Ode to a Red Button

This button makes me think of how small things that are red on khaki green backgrounds are larger than life, for they stand out, out and about proclaiming themselves in distinction, proclaiming themselves by what they are- red in this case- a case of identity, not mistaken, but could be a matter of over-generalization in categorization: its redness seen as definitive, but surely a button is more than its colour- it connects openings and closings of clothing protecting us from the elements- elements like those that are now on my mind and outside of my window- cold and grey elements in which the red and the warmth are doubly distinct.