I AM NOT going to apologize for a long time since my last post. Instead, I will present a small preview of the project that has been keeping me too busy to blog. Tumamoc artists have been coming up at dawn to work over the summer. Writers have been writing on site. The result is This Piece of Earth is a 48-page booklet, published by Tumamoc: People and Habitats, showcasing some of the poets and artists working on Tumamoc over the past two years or so.

The title comes from one of the poems, and the idea came out of the enthusiastic response to the small poetry reading given last Spring by the Tumamoc Hill writing project organized by the poetry group, POG. (Nobody knows what POG stands for, but I call it “Poets on the Ground.”) We set up a tent, a PA system, and some chairs in the Desert Lab parking lot. There was something magic about the sound of the poets voices ringing out over the landscape that Sunday morning. Everyone wanted the reading to last longer in some form. POG suggested a chapbook, which became a collaboration with the artists working on Tumamoc.

We don’t know exactly how to categorize this little book, because chapbooks don’t usually have pictures. But we do know that everything in it was written, painted, drawn, or snapped on the Hill. Seven poets and five artists participated.

There will be a book launch event scheduled in early December, so stay tuned. Here are a few sample pages.