I Am Iamb!
Welcome
All gone
the heat the haze
the humid drain of life
our guests arrive on gusts of fresh—
rejoice!
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3 x 3″; watercolor on paper
card #16 in a series of color swatches
2025
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Notes about poem and painting:
• “Hello” was written in response to yet another prompt from the Coursera poetry class I took in June. It’s a cinquain, a tiny poem of five lines in a pattern of two syllables, then four, then six, then eight, and ending again with two, with all five lines told in iambs. An iamb is a metrical foot consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.
• What you do not see, regrettably, in Taking, are the blackberry lilies that gave rise to these seed pods. As summer kept moving ever forward, I found myself scrambling to catalog the many flowers of our garden, but I wasn’t always able to keep pace the way I wished! Happily, the lilies will reseed themselves and I’ll aim to paint their colors in 2026.
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10 responses to “I Am Iamb!”
Carol, in keeping with my poems title, you’ve offered such welcome feedback. First, love your feeling the rejoice of the guests of fall, not least of all because your interpretation reminds me of one of the huge gifts of poetry, i.e. that it can be received in so many different ways, each one of which is legit. Second, thank you for your nod to what I did with the course. I found it to be a somewhat quirky course, and its presentation style a bit of an awkward fit for me, but I committed to giving it a respectful shot and was (and continue to be) surprised by how much I learned.
Those greens and oranges appealed to me as well, and I like going back now (this piece actually painted 6 weeks ago!) to appreciate those signals of change in the growing season.
So grateful for our ongoing art conversations, Carol!
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Gotta love gusts of fresh, which is exactly what my qigong class did by practicing outdoors this morning. Thanks for appreciating these blackberry lilies in their transitional phase, MaryAnn—I caught them after they had finished blooming but before their seed pods opened to showcase what look like blackberries. I might have to paint them again this season!!
Simone, thanks for your LOVE of my color studies/beautiful paintings. Your comment about reminding you to look around and really SEE colors around you is one of the aspects of these studies that has kept me doing painting after painting in this series. I have yet to tire of engaging in this particular way with color and the world at my feet. A welcome and unanticipated sacred journey for eight weeks now—and the end is not yet in sight!
And, who knew?, I’ve also become deliciously involved in writing poetry which has been a second sacred journey, exploring language and form and, like my color studies, shifting the ways I interact with the world around me.
Lola, I had fun with the word play—it is such a new thing for me to write poetry regularly and I’m finding I like toggling back and forth between long and short pieces, deep and playful, free verse rhyme, and so forth, along with the occasional pun! Smitten and swooning!!! Who could ask for better?! Thank you!
I love the poem, and the feelings it conveys. And learning about the technical side, so interesting. That filled my “learn something new each day” slot. Thank you Dotty!
The seed pods are so bright and the shapes are all so interesting. Your color swatches are delightful. I love the touch of warmth with the juicy greens.
Thank you, Dotty!
Sheila, happy to have added to your day the feelings of my poem and its ‘technical’ underpinnings. I’ve been learning something new each day for sure in recent months. I’m fascinated by the way the pattern of syllables and the use of iambs create movement, rhythm, and musicality to just a handful of gathered words.
Thanks for noticing the bright colors and interesting shapes of these seed pods. They called out to me and I was happy to honor them in paint!
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