WATERMARK

a poet’s notebook

Established 02004

Poets

July 12, 2005

Another

I woke this morning to a note from Erin, that her beloved sister Wendy died this weekend while vacationing in Mexico. Wendy was thirty years old. Erin has written about this here. Life is seeming particularly cruel these past weeks; my small garden is not large enough to contain it, and far too small to… Continue reading

Photos 2005, Poets

death, Erin Noteboom, Wendy Ewell
January 8, 2005

Poets’ Notebooks

I found this meme at chanticleer and Big Window — Eduardo says: Every poet I know carries around a notebook to jot down ideas, images, bits of interesting data. I’ve always wanted to take a peek inside another poet’s notebook. So I’m asking other bloggers to post a page from their notebooks on their blogs.… Continue reading

Memes, Poets, Writing

notebooks, Poets, Writing
November 18, 2004

Good News

Árni is awake. We are told: He’s terribly tired – even opening his eyes is a major effort. He seems to have control of hands and legs, no apparent paralysis in his face, and he clearly understands what’s going on. — and who is to say that all those candles did not help? He will… Continue reading

Poets

Arni Ibsen, Buddha, photograph, rose
November 3, 2004

Life

This morning, along with other distressing news, I hear that Árni Ibsen, a steady light on the PoetryEtc list, collapsed with a brain hemorrhage on Tuesday. It is a cold, grey morning. And it is filled with waxwings. Continue reading

Personal, Poets

Arni Ibsen, poet
September 7, 2004

Poem From A Friend

This Garden Cindy Smith you cannot know what you have planted buttercup, bramble, or choking thorn they are all here before you in their most secret form, root threads or seeds closed like fists in the sun and you must pick, and plant unknowing, and never knowing if the mud in your… Continue reading

Cindy Smith, Poems, poetry, Poets

Ancestral (Artificial )Intelligence

I do not use AI to write. For me, writing is how I think, and I prefer to do it myself. If/when I post anything here that I suspect or know to be AI generated, I will tell you.

I have changed this from Artificial to Ancestral, after Abi Awomosu @ Substack. This medium was made with human history, human thought. All of it, bright and dark. It is ancestral.

Poems

Please do not assume that I am the speaker/ subject of my poems.

In these times of creative nonfiction and fictionalized memoirs, I think of the poem itself as true fiction: it is most likely not factual, but it must be true.

It is likely to be — it is best if it is — a truth I did not know before I wrote, and may not understand even then.

A poem is my way of discovering (dis-covering) what I feel; sometimes, what I think — but it is not necessarily biographical.

Poets

Another

Poets’ Notebooks

Good News

Life

Poem From A Friend