A Happy Encounter of Objects: The Poetry Jar

 

Sometimes when I am in the creative doldrums I simply wander around my house and stop to dig aimlessly through old stashes of stuff — objects that looked like they might turn into something interesting given the right inspiration and a little luck.

The Poetry Jar is the product of my latest wander. The objects that found each other in this piece include: 

• Mormon Glass Grapes (read all about these fascinating artifacts of Americana here);

• A lovely glass container from the flea market that was originally used to create a spordscape, back when I was into cultivating mold;

• Glass slides with lettering on them (and all the verbs in red!), from a kit from the 1950s intended for use in schools. The idea was to use these with an overhead projector to teach students about word endings in poetry. Another flea market score and one that I have been trying to figure out how to use for three decades or more.

And the result of this creative play turned out to be the perfect gift for a poet: The Poetry Jar. Now these are no longer objects looking for a purpose in life; they have morphed into a gift looking for the perfect recipient.

The Poetry Jar

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