[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Ann - I'll help with the images. I saw your first one - it was a gorgeous picture of a frozen frog which looked like it had icy moustaches. I'll see if I can link to it below:

Ann's first image:

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

...and I like your feet image too (it looks toasty warm).

If you're trying to upload a photomontage to start a thread I can help. If you PM me then I'll give you my email address and I can upload them to some old spaces I've got kicking around and post them here on your behalf.

If you want to find a way yourself, then I'd recommend a site like Imagur, where it's very, very easy to upload images (just click 'create new post' and follow the instructions).

I'm responding to your last poem, which I enjoyed very much. It's just taking me a while as I have had to wait until tonight to have a spare half-hour to draw an elephant (it's not a very well-drawn elephant). And now I want to put it on a box...

Sarah-Jane

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

[RCL]

On Ann's hearth image:

Vital Heat

A hearth’s a house’s heart:
House walls, a second skin,
hold vital heat within,
as skin does for our heart.
A chimney, like our mouth,
vents heat, as we do breath.

[Jayne Osborn]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

I wonder if anyone else...sees a coy little elephant in the centre of your image.

I do... though he has no ears, poor thing! The image of the frozen frog is amazing. We've had thick snow falling all day here... I haven't set foot outside the door, or else I might look like that frog

This is a fun - and very imaginative - thread, Jane; thanks for starting it. Sorry I haven't contributed more, but I have a couple of big things going on in my life at the moment, taking up a lot of time. I love seeing what you're all posting though.

Jayne

[Ann Drysdale]

Oh. Bugger. I took the frog down almost at once because it was something I found on the Internet and decided as soon as I'd posted it that this wasn't in the spirit of the game. I have some pictures of things I've actually made myself and tried to download one of these but it was getting late and my eyelids were drooping and having hit fail after fail (I was following the directions on the site FAQ) and unable to see what was causing the difficulty, I just capitulated when I found one that it would upload - my own fiery feet.

At first I felt wretched because I'd screwed up, but if Jane thinks froggy's OK and has been kind enough to set him up in all his glory, then he's been passed as fit for purpose and people can hang poems from his frozen fingers. And meanwhile Ralph has already made something worthwhile from my home heating system. So I shall forgive myself.

Now all I have to do is look afresh at the latest image from Jane, try to forget that box poem I wrote for the Oldie competition and start knitting a new one, and see if I can find the actual frog-photographer so they can be credited properly.

And Jayne, the elephant does have ears only you can't see them because it has just poked its little face through a rip in the paper. I hope your current concerns resolve themselves swiftly and gently.

Now I will eat my porridge.

Since then, Jane has pointed out that I need not worry about attribution for the frog, so all is well.
.

[Ann Drysdale]

The box on the doorstep is rather small.
The label says it holds an elephant.
It’s probably a toy, perhaps inflatable
or covered in ersatz acrylic fur.
I brace myself for bitter disappointment.

But I don’t touch the box. I stare at it.
Could it contain a living pachyderm?
wishing it might, hoping it won’t, believing
that for as long as I remain unsure
I will have a potential elephant,

taken for granted, hypothetical,
my faith will save it, like applause for fairies,
like the imagined cat of every colour
preserved forever in a lidless box,
permanent, precious possibility.
.

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Ann,

I love that!

(and I too was thinking about Schrödinger's cat, although not in any intelligent way)

But the idea of a potential elephant is gorgeous, as is the way it moves from potential to hypothetical.

I only have time to play at the moment so I'm so glad the thread is here. I might leap into RCL's next because I like the dwelling ideas in it (I've been re-reading The Poetics of Space and it sparks all kinds of thoughts).

Jayne - thank-you for kickstarting the thread and revisiting.

Ann - I don't think there are any rules & found images (although you're right about citations) are fine.

Onward! (with potential elephants in tow)

Sarah-Jane

[RCL]

A happy coincidence, Jane! Many years ago, I refocused my literary analysis of American writers, intensely of Thoreau and Poe, after reading Poetics of Space and Psychoanalysis of Fire. This piece echoes another I did about Thoreau’s construction of his cabin and its relation to vital heat (and another little piece is languishing on Met as I type).

Cheers,

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

Thank-you RCL, that sounds interesting. I'm reading Perec at the moment, and have never read Thoreau. I'll see what I can find. I can't even comment if I might need to read Thoreau because I know so little about them.

Because of all of this, I won't be following the thought-lines of your poem in a particularly intelligent way, I expect.

But this is a game, so that is okay. I am enjoying making little dioramas of paper, so here's another. I nearly put a statue of what I think is Athena in there but wasn't sure, so didn't. I couldn't get the candle to burn as red as I'd have liked without risking actual fire, too.

Bone House.