poetry boat #3

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This image is for my brother in laws poetry book entitled, We Bed Down In Water, coming out on Northwestern University Press. They actually did not choose this variation of the image for their final design but it is the one I happen to like the most. My brother in law is John Rybicki and he has been an enduring influence on me in his enthusiasim for the written word. He lives a very humble life with his wife Julie, also a wonderful poet, and their adopted son Martel. John does combination of hard labor jobs including working in a tire repair service, odd construction/remodling jobs, and landscaping. He also has intermitent appointments at local colleges and highschools leading poetry workshops. Julie has been battling cancer for 15 years and this has given their life together a certain urgency and potency that comes with fighting to stay alive. Their writing reflects this struggle to keep hope alive while living with a life threatening disease that refuses to go away. What is it about living with hardship that makes us feel more alive? How do we continue to alow these life crushing experiences become the mortal and pestal of healing? How can artists continue to produce work that can bring light into seemingly hopelessly dark places? I often times feel lost in my life that is quickly taken over by countless tasks that seem endlessly to be repeated; make dinner, clean the dishes and put them away, straighten up the livingroom, put away the toys, mail out the bills, walk to the grocery store for more milk….this is the weave and texture of my life right now. My life is made up of many things to do and I find my brief times to make art are helpful in bringing me back to a place of being like a child lost in the process of play. Making Johns book cover was a chance for me to colaborate with a dear friend. I saturated my self in his poems. I prayed and began to creat images like you would cook a stew, adding a bit of this and a bit of that. (You can check out more about John and Julie at Julie’s blog called, dancing the cancer down to dust)