Bluebird

“Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” – Slyvia Plath

As I started my routine of building a mini folio of images as my weekly visual exercise this summer, I found myself building a habit of photographing with themes, or narratives in mind nowadays. Instead of photographing at random, I find myself enjoying the challenge to work with a purpose in mind. During this process, I find myself producing work that is more satisfying as a result. I look for inspirations from poems, movies, all different material that interest me.

This week's work is inspired by a poem by Charles Bukowski. I have been working on this idea for a while since I listened to this poem being narrated by a wonderful gentleman on YouTube. This bluebird can be so many things to different people. At present, I like to think it as my creativity, sometimes I feel like I am on fire, my head is filled with wonderful ideas, sometimes there is barely a drip. It is like riding a wave, going up and down. Sometimes I feel I don't have the confidence to give it enough room to run, and it is hiding in a corner somewhere. I will continue to explore more of this idea.

Here is the short YouTube video if anyone is interested in listening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhi6y1XWb-E

Here is the poem "Bluebird by Charles Bukowski": There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you. There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there. There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? You want to screw up the works? You want to blow my book sales in Europe? There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody’s asleep. I say, I know that you’re there, so don’t be sad. Then I put him back, but he’s singing a little in there, I haven’t quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it’s nice enough to make a man weep, But I don’t weep,

do you