Poetry

R O Y G B I V
R A I N B O W

excerpts & lines & lists
from 'prismatic utopia'
poetry manuscript

edited with Heather MacKay Young

morning color chart
31 days 31 poems 31 colors


butter cup tansy
catbird’s russeted feathers
flaming red rooster comb
cloud burst droplets
billowing thatched roofsen
vigee le brun vases
looked up saw turquoise
okra lima beans sky
silver smog nothingness
bulky orange life vest
cocks comb scarlet
honey from the comb
jewel weed flattened leaf
psychedelic rigamarole
summer’s sequenced sultry days
pink pegrail
yellowed paper
wooden docks red squirrels
jaundiced yellow fog glare
bluetiful
rain sky
gulps of cawchee
lilac mountain mist
katydid wings
iridescent weblines
silver spider strands
jewelweed honey
bindweed center
shell without barnacles
flowering goldenrod
berries blueness

[colors found in my morning poem writing]

begrudge doilies
 
 
oval boxes
begrudge doilies
flame red colors
venus east sky
 
 
neon yellow
blue dotted
purple violet
 
 
wrangled lines
noting nothing
onto paper
thoughts
 
cantankerous 
qualities of things
collide
 
.
.
from prismatic utopia, my poetry manuscript

so thankful to poet & editor Heather MacKay Young
for the opportunity to work together on this manuscript

/
lists

//

buckets
basins
bowls
pitchers
pans
pots
lids
pecks
pints
stoves
skillets
sieves
steamers
ranges
roasters
refrigerators

///

gather
procure
harvest
make
mash
sprinkle
simmer
cream
preserve
rise
.
.
timelines
vessels
actions

( of )     Newton and Optiks
                                      of mystics and mysteries maintained	
                                      of gravity graced and rippled radiuses
                                      of faceted prisms and rainbows realized
                                      of colour continuums and countless confections
 
( of )     vistas and visionaries
                                      of ricocheting and reflecting
                                      of timelessness and tinsel strands
                                      of stars and fourth floor staircases
                                      of simple sincerity and quickenings
                                      of thin redlines and economy of means
 


Tomorrow begins the Dublin Seminar held at Historic Deerfield.  I’ll be giving a paper on Saturday, ‘building Harmony | constructing Color.’ Positing ideas about Shakers early use of architectural color predating 21st century color consultants’ and theorists.

And, this paper wouldn’t have happened without the Historic Deerfield Library Fellowship where I read so many books in the Wolf Collection—1200 books of color! Thanks Mr. Wolf and Historic Deerfield Library.

[excerpt from ‘emanations’ from my upcoming poetry book, ‘prismatic utopia’]

[images all from books in the Wolf Collection at Historic Deerfield Library]

today I’m setting the table for
my friend’s indigo dyeing class
studio visit
 
walking around the table so many to thank,
including--
-india flint at haystack for her ecoprinting class 
-norte maar & Jason Andrew for showing ‘a year’s worth’
-and later bewilder work with catalog
-everyone that taught & talked to me about natural dyes
-working at Naumkeag with their amazing flower gardens
-being a TA for Kathy Hattori at Haystack and dyeing with
            so many talented dyers
-learning that Shakers wore ‘any color they could dye’ as 
            an artist in residence at Hancock with Smp
-showing not once but twice with like-minded artists
            interested in the Shakers, organized by Albany airport & Eric
-performing meetinghouse with miram at a moonbow event
and later eal publishing it and then adding a podcast
-working with curator Christie Jackson & all at Fruitlands on
‘anything but drab’
 
often one thing leads to another
oftentimes it's just someone’s faith in your work
or just willing to say yes to something never done
but always, I am filled with so much gratitude to all.
Thank you. 

what is poetry?
how does one revise?
how does one make a manuscript?

emily dickinson said, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.  These are the only ways I know it.  Is there another way.”
[letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson]

i’m playing a poetry game
rearranging words
moving about sentences
reading chanting aloud
working with Heather McKay Young is serious &fun
color charts the way

roster of reds
recently read
ranges of russet
selections of scarlet
swatches of silk

books from Memorial Library, Historic Deerfield
Shaker objects & textiles, Shaker Museum
.


—Maerz Dictionary of Color
—cupboard over drawers
-Syme, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
—Shaker Sister Kneckerchief
—Jorgensen Mastery of color
—Shaker oval box
—Chevreul, Des Couleurs
—Shaker survey tool
—The Practical Decorator, George Audsley & Maurice Audsley
—Shaker Sister Neckerchief
—Munsel Book of Color
—Colors, what they are and what to expect of them

all in line
aligned

midnight blue
dove grey
forest green
petal pink
crimson coral
 
I’ve cited
I’ve cleaned
i’ve imagined
I’ve inventoried
 
colors in Dorothy cloaks
colors in poetry manuscripts
 
 
image  Dorothy cloaks Shaker Museum
       Prismatic Utopia, poetry manuscript

color collected:
Stephen L. Wolf Collection
Memorial Library, Historic Deerfield
 
……………………………………

color    as       pie charts
                  dots blots
 
color    as       time keepers
                  palette makers
 
color    as       gridded groups 
                  accented accidents
 
color    as       prism percussions
                  regulated registers
            
color    as       absolute attributes
		  sequenced saturations
                        
color    as       consumer consensus
                  compasses quandaries 
                                                            
color    as       faceted philosophies
		  fascinating phenomena
                        
color    as       tangents into treatises
		  notions into nomenclatures
 
		  color collected


……………………………………………………………


—Munsel, Munsel Book of Color
—Rimington, The Art of Mobile Colour
—Chevreul, Chevreul on Colors
—Chevreul, Des Couleurs
—Hay, Nomenclature of Colours
—Hitchcock, Religion of Geology
—Birren, Color for Interiors
—Field, Field’s Chromatography for Artists
—Gaspard, Theorie des couleurs
—Bustanoby, Principles of Color Mixing
—Walch, Color Source Book
—Jones, Grammar of Ornament
—The Painter’s Handbook
—Wolf Flow Colors, Wolf & Son’s Paints


………………………………………………………………

Thanks Memorial Library/Historic Deerfield for fruitful fabulous fellowship to examine the Stephen L Wolf color book collection. 

NOTE: Application deadline for the 2026/7 Memorial Library Fellowship due April 3, 2026

dive into each color

drop into rooms skyed
stand on floors ochred
wind swifts chromed
wheel barrows greened

impromptu

studio still lives
hilma postcards
pigment processes
morning quick collages
harris tweed color considerations