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Saturday Spotlight for October 6th, 2012
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ing this News Article. We hope this gives you some insight into the person behind the art. Please comment and the features and congratulate the artist!
ing this News Article. We hope this gives you some insight into the person behind the art. Please comment and the features and congratulate the artist!Artists will be featured in a special news article every Saturday. Major points to =SilverInkblot and =DrippingWords for doing the hard work and research that goes into these articles!
Today's featured deviant is: 
~a-secret-key!
~a-secret-key!Questions
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing.
To me, writing is synonymous with escapism. Where I come from [N. Ireland], the world is steeped in stories. Not only old tales: modern legends can be created constantly from very small events as long as the right person is telling the story. In the same way, warnings to children are told as superstitions. As a child, the whole world seemed very magical, except the bits of it that I saw firsthand: so consequently I translated everything around me into a grand saga that I'd write in my head or act out with imaginary friends. This was me beginning to write, and I did it as an act of rebellion. Some people need to write to function, but I write not to function: to indulge in a world where there is always more than what we see.
This has bled into my poetry, and as a result I have two themes which I always include in my writing: the mystical, old or romantic and the raw, harsh or real. These themes can take the form of sounds, images or ideas, but they are always present. The dream world and the real one, at war.
2. How do you feel about dA as a literature community?
dA is really wonderful as a literature community. The instant connection with so many readers and other writers is something I value an awful lot- there is no support network offline that compares, especially when you begin to write and you're quite shy about it.
Getting comments and feedback within a short space of posting is something that I love, because I'm a huge sucker for instant gratification. It's really difficult to get criticism offline, and even if you publish something, it's not like you have a connection or a username right in front of you that says somebody has read this. It's nice to see it out there. I find I need that motivation.
Groups like feature like DLD does are brilliant. Before dA I hadn't read any modern poetry, because it is kind of closed off when you're young and broke and not that interested, but as I built up my watch list I found all kinds of styles and writers I would never have glimpsed if it were not for dA.
People complain that the literature community on here is somewhat neglected, but I really can't say anything bad about it, because it taught me to write.
3. What is your writing process like?
Most of the time I begin with an image, or a phrase that pops into my head. Sometimes it's even just a word. I'll keep that or jot it down in my phone memo pad and then I'll work from there. It's more like uncovering a poem. I have no idea what I'm writing about until I've written the first draft. Then I run through it again with a focus, a structure: after that it's just nitpicking phrases and words until I feel content. I go through it line by line, or stanza by stanza. Sometimes it comes naturally; sometimes you rewrite a phrase 50 times and wind up scrapping it. I like those complicated ones, they feel like a challenge. But yeah, I'm pretty awful at planning or beginning with a strong focus, and that only happens rarely or if I have a prompt or something.
4. What do you consider to be your highest literary accomplishment?
It's hard to choose: My first DD, the first time I was published: both of those I'm really proud of. Also, completing NaNo WriMo last year was something I was thrilled with because I'm usually really fickle with ideas. I sort of felt that if I could do NaNo WriMo, I could do anything. To quote Joey Tribbiani: it was my Everest.
5. Where do your best ideas come from? Is it mostly internal, or do you prefer to pull from your environment?
Usually the concepts that I work with come from my head. I deal in ideas more than people stuff. Saying that, there is A LOT of other people's thoughts in my head, because I read one book a day. It's a steady supply of fuel. My images and metaphors come from my environment, and fortunately I have a lot to work with. For instance, there's a lake at my house which is practically my muse most days. I think it'd take a while for me to completely run out of ways to use it.
I also steep everything in myths: Celtic, classical, fairytales and even folklore. I read a lot of that stuff and I love using it. There Celtic side of things in particular I think is quite under-rated, and if anybody is looking for inspiration I recommend that they check it out.
Poetry
letter to a suit of armourWe have both been here before,
Paused, stood, and stared before. And
I have to ask- Is it
the light that keeps you so still?
I've watched it pleading,
its yellow yolk weeping
on the shoulders of
impassive you. It finds no features to cling to.
You look seamless. So tell me,
how did you empty? Was
your person plucked away by a sharp beak? Or did
they wither and decay? Are your bones still
inside? Did you creak
shut like an oyster?
What I mean to ask is
where did your details go? Did you trade
them for a legend, quid pro quo?
And last of all, would you
describe yourself as an elephant skulled accident or
something a lit
"letter to a suit of armour" by ~a-secret-key
KnowledgeIn a fever dream, black dooms descending
He lies rapt in stupor.
The windows tilt from his halo, the dry
heat ticking, each death rattle measures light into
reflections- form a periscope. One eye is all
that is needed to see. People
stutter along streets, gloom draped. Voices
soften and stretch, heard through memory and dreaming-
one hundred shadowy watchers meld to tarmac. Only one enters.
Yard lights convulse, scald twilit moments, birds
settling on flares. He blinks,
old as time- skin a coral of waxes, leather from his own glow. Eyes,
molten yolks still glimmer beneath lids, fat sunken. She watches,
notes of orange blossom
"Knowledge" by ~a-secret-key
Autumn MythsThe seasons form
a marriage of opposites. Two
exalted lights meet, both searching
a sky devoid of allegiance. It reads
like a prelude to creation.
-
Not cumulus, not stratus or cirrus: instead the
mists lie on gravel-throated greens, entirely indistinct.
We pass with caution through divine riot, knowing
very little except of the carrion: the treetops who
snatch celestial glory, gilt earth with futile pride.
They hope for a metamorphisis of old habits but
instead find fortunes are fleeting- goblin gold,
lifting with the skies as they fill with hoarse gloom.
We gathered some, plucked them from
the air for souveniers. Counted
"Autumn Myths" by ~a-secret-key
Evening Poems9 o'clock and
a nightingale song
clatters forth
from a starling winged night
in perfect mimickry.
The moon and her mandrake
baby screech whites,
peel trees to bone. Blacks
shiver down.
-
The stars meet
at hush- Deaf but eternal
jury. Atlas, stung by
each daughter: a pinhole
truth, still naively serene
after all they've seen: from dove breath
to flame. All
is a curse to the lampbearers.
-
O sleep,
The moon holds court.
Great judge, her metals bleed
into radiance, cleave twilight to hill.
She bobs socketless
through aether and flame, &
to her gleaming calm
all shadows die. No illusions survive
but reflecti
"Evening Poems" by ~a-secret-key
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Prepared by: =DrippingWords
I love you =SilverInkblot; it's difficult to accurately impart how much i always look forward to reading these segments. So glad that you have found such a fantastic helper/collaborator in =DrippingWords as i'm unsure what my weekends would consist of without one of these to enlighten them with. Just thought you should know.