St. Lawrence Area Poets

Been reading another poetry book lately, Recent Forgeries by Viggo Mortensen.  Now, everybody remembers Viggo--he's the rugged-looking fellow who played Aragorn in Peter Jackson's marvelous Lord of the Rings trilogy of fims.  Well, it turns out that Viggo is also quite a multi-media artist.  Recent Forgeries is softcover, nearly square, 106 pages, originally published in 1998 by Smart Art Press.  I have the fourth edition, 2003, printed & bound in Spain.  It's a lovely book, filled w/ poetry & scores of photos & drawings--both full color & black-&-white--by the author.  He uses glue, old wallpaper, broken toys, anything he finds--to fashion a scuplture or a 3-D collage.  The poetry relies on great detail--just what a scene looks like, or a person's face.  Some of the poems veer off into sheer fantasy, yet they retain that sharp sense of reality.  And Viggo is sort of a local boy.  Although he was born down in Manhattan, the family moved a lot, & he graduated high school in Watertown in 1976.  The book is accompanied by a CD containing 16 poems, spoken by Mortensen w/ his casual actor's voice.  These poems are often accompanied by eerie music & sound-effects, very atmospheric.  This is a book that is worth checking out.

And that's it for tonight.  The next SLAP meeting is scheduled for Tuesday November 8th, 6:30 at the UU Church in Canton.  The Challenge is to write a Rant, any subject.  I've started mine.  Now I've got to crank it up.  Bye.

weather: chilly

miscellaneous: delicious spaghetti

for edification & amusement, contact John at ataraxia1114@aim.com