marlene mountain
as was/is
9/15/98

 

To: ahabooks
From: visualmm
Subject: blind renga/jr 3
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jane
several years ago i created the idea of 'blind renga.' each of the two poets would spend a few days writing 18 links, following the long/short/long form. we would then send our links to the other and meshed them. no changes to be made or the idea would be lost. i also suggested the we could write about ourselves. 'open i'd blind renga.'

it would be fun to see the linking that would occur. similar to 'found renga' which i created in 1982.

i found this changed version of 'open i'd' yesterday online, includung part of the title changed. i don't understand why you rewrote all of yours. [i've put your 'originals' in brackets.] it is certainly no longer 'blind.' why didn't you let me know it would be online so i could proof? or ask permission--even if nothing had been changed, but esp since the whole idea was?

this our 2nd blind that isn't blind. the idea of blind renga has never happened which would be ok, but it doesn't seem fair to name it what it isn't. i would appreciate that you unpublish it from the page, free up my links and title. thank you.

i honestly appreciate all your many ideas and your hard work and dedication. i also have a bit of this in my undertakings. and would certainly want to do your things correctly. the best of everything to you and werner and your many creative endeavors.
lovemm 9/15/98

http://www.faximum.com/aha.d/archive.htm
This is a renga done by Marlene Mountain of Hampton, Tennesse and Jane Reichhold of Gualala, California in the early 1990s. I don't think it has ever been published.

OPEN EYED BLIND [should read: open i'd blind renga]

j born with the sun on Capricorn's cusp
[Betweem my legs the I eye am]

m at 51 half moons under blue moons

j digging a hole with bare hand just to squeeze mud
[the apple cut an eye revealed bleeding]

m i don't go around saying i love nature

j everyday I eat, drink and wear it
[slipping from the mountain pass my I of the night]

m no need to fear my kind of honesty

m lost and found feelings deep in writing begun 30 years ago

j children's stories for Mennonites
[hearing the bitch's excuses ei! ei! I!]

m the struggle into minimalism the struggle out and into my life

j bare bones living on peanut butter
[touching your face how selfish my I's]

m i've come too far now for plain old esthetic conversations

j my smile for professors no come-on
[mirror looking inside my womanness]

m in my heart fuck rengaleaps it's the jump from art to heart/ache

j messes in my life left by love
[seven days this eye weeps some moonths twice]

m offended by my words consider the reasons they've had to appear

j swearing at the frozen pump it starts
[heavy eyelids smiling her thick lips]

m to hear from others that others dislike me my unhaiku oneness

j my skin is where your body begins
[the mask without an I]

j sometimes maleness goes right through me
[eve the eye without a tail]

m still not over my neglect of the female

j his story/history my story/mystery copyrighted
[headlights on the deer green glowing]

m more fan mail from males than woms

j having the courage to feel how much I love you
[unseeing an iris with petals]

m all the emotion sends me to bed alone

j seeing in the dark so clearly rivers run deep
[curls around one which winks pubic hair]

m dirt rich (at least)

j compost piling up in the privy
[grocery store the door opened by one electronic]

m trees alive in my head

j the dead go walking in my feet open flowers
[nights two red spots blink slink away]

m i've said it clumsy but it's said

m yet now that i kinda know don't know if i can do what i do

j the article sent off keeps revising itself
[center of a hurricane the whole town]

m the real thing nothing special after we etch the horrors
[delete: thing mm]

j a mask has no I
[my mother named me I'm a Jean]

m one moment to show everything the next to rebury it deeper

j inky we-moons always wreyeting
[those crazy women always wreyeting]

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