marlene mountain
as is
1998

 

8/23/98

just begun

when women are left out of something that means they're pretty darn good. as hisstory/herstory has shown.

i/myself/me don't need mag publication to validate what i write. i rarely send out anything because i understand the climate. (& i've become lazy.) i was pained by comments made by ken re my knowledge of sequences--& how long one was and whether it made sense, etc. i am a harder critic of myself than anyone has yet to be. much turmoil on 'art' level, on family level, on privacy level, on content. have never done anything for 'shock value.' tho i have shocked myself and have gulped at what at times has poured out. i have finally understood that what appears 'shocking' in some of my work represents my shock at the various content of the world i become aware of.

sometimes i have gone after information for my own need to know. and now find much of it in the public arena. eg, infibulation. sometimes i don't want to know anymore than i know. if at various times it weren't for eric, hal, you and dorothy i would have felt quite isolated. but in the end what i have been about--without a clue during the time--since about 18 has been an exciting as well as scary venture into what i didn't know the day before. in painting & writing. when i learn to do something i stop doing it. why i don't know. i've yet to learn all that haiku can do. i'm trying to get past my saying 'that is, what i call haiku.' i trust myself better than that. it's the ever ongoing evolution/revolution that haiku--if it's a living art as i believe it to be--has always been about. the japanese compulsiveness to narrow everything down doesn't mean that's the last word on haiku. haiku has only just begun. (who's the optimist?)

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