Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Brevity

"Asian Pear" by Serena Barton

Recently the subject of brevity has come up several times, including at my current writing seminar. Our facilitator challenges us to take the 10-page short story and make it something like, oh, maybe 800 words! It reminds me of the television program, "Name that Tune." The goal was for the contestants to guess the song correctly with as few notes as possible. Similarly, we're being challenged to see how concisely we can make our point.
At the recent writing seminar we wrote for 30 minutes with three random words picked from bowls: a noun, a verb, and a color or smell. I wrote a short story. When the three-minute warning bell rang, I decided to see if I could dash off a short poem with the same three words; below is the result.

STARS
by Dot.
stars like sponges
providing escape
from the jet black of night.
"the brevity of resonant drifting" by Steve Roden

I was curious what other artists have done with the concept of brevity or simplicity. All of these images are different conceptualizations of that idea.

IMAGE SOURCES:
rock sculpture: Absolve
bird of paradise: HouseOnAHill
Sam's Flower Drawing: HouseOnAHill
"Simplicity": Chris Larkin