on chesil beach project begins

This week I've begun my first large scale collage project. I purchased a large print copy of Ian McEwan's new novel On Chesil Beach. I thought it would be interesting to try a novel that has just come out.

I am working my way through every page of the book, clipping out what I find interesting. I have a few poems mostly formed and many beginnings. The only "frustrations" I've had are that, since the novel is more 'literary,' there is a severe lack of action verbs. The novel (more a novella, I guess) also is only about two people and they don't talk much--so very little change in diction, very little change in mood, few lively descriptive passages. (Sometimes I wonder if "bad" writing is better for my work...)

I am already beginning to see how the themes of the book begin to rise up--not really themes but motifs and settings. Hotels, rooms, beaches, bodies--and it becomes my own environment, transformed.

Also looking to start my photo-collages again, in which I take photos of colors, shapes, textures, etc. and then collage them together. This is a little different than taking advertisements or other kinds of scraps. There is kind of two-phased selection process, though they are disconnected. I put up some of my older photo-collages today and admired them--I think it's a promising direction still. (Maybe the collage poems and photo-collages can be combined at some point...but everyday I am reminded: you can't force anything with this.)