An acrostic

This is one of my poems, one of a specific kind.

It was a day, such a glorious day!
My heart resonates as a bird.
Along with three mountains under a ray,
Glazed aka nuptial cakes, though blurred.
In dance THEY've merged into a sun:
Never you've seen this before!
Insistent shouts vibrating like one...
Narcissus'd forgotten his sour!
Graceful and rhythmic, THEY are calm as machine.
Dawning has coloured the mill...
Rigid of lines underlined mise-en-scène:
Aurora scattered sweet chill.
Grateful I feel to have seen such a scene.
Only one thought can abruptly distract:
Nothing is real but nothing is dream...
Set as alive as a bookish extract.


The poem is well-protected and must not be copied neither used without my name included as its author and my permission to post it. Thank you!


Acrostic is a versed composition in which you can find a specific set of letters or words to compose a word or a phrase. It helps, for example, to encrypt the true meaning of the text or create a pattern. An acrostic can be a puzzle and/or a joke in order to create a specific mood and then change it as the enigma is solved.
Acrostic was invented ages ago by Ἐπίχαρμος (Epicharmus Comicus). It was also used as a good protection of author rights, for instance, Quintus Ennius used the technique to spell his name out and confirm that he is indeed the author (Fisher, J., 2014, p.84 - The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition). 

It is interesting that a poem, which is considered as a phonetic kind of art can also be visual as one often has to see the poem so she/he can understand the trick. It even leads us to the ancient illuminated manuscripts, which initials were carefully drawn. This sense of beauty appears in acrostics, especially alphabetical, too as they maintain a preassigned rhythm. When they are read, they might lost it but not when their main idea is to confuse the reader - in this case they would surprise him/her in the end as they will have a look at it.

Gears

I love to learn something new and when I decided that my next Photoshop project would be gears, I began to read and watch material of how they are made and how they work.
Thus I have begun to calculate and end up with a special chain. I learn a lot about gears though the whole work!
A video was a result of it and a gif, which you, my dear reader, can find below, is merely an example. The video is longer than the 5 sec. gif, and, obviously, is distinguished by a better quality. All gears were made separately, drawn by me, their resolutions are, on average, 1000 pixels.

As you, dear reader, can see, several gears are rotating with a different speed rather than others. They also create a special pattern and every one of them is important.
The gear on the right was influenced by madhatter's lesson (from the site http://steampunker.ru/) steampunk gear, although I made it thicker and the teeth longer, while the inner side are halfs of four triangles.

My friend Simon. A poem.

I think one of the best way to learn something is joking - in it, summarizing it, or even before starting the topic. It is indeed a method making it easier to memorise something as it evokes emotions - positive emotions...


I have a friend with whom I talk.
He helps with plots to splice.
Despite he likes the prose to chalk,
This joke is his advice.
He always smiles, so does he now -
Infective this, presume -
And always knows the best way how
To hide a witchcraft broom.
In languages he is well versed,
And thinks no pause is dull.
Guess, I had to say at first,
That Simon is a skull?

Anna Kavan, 2016.

The poem is well-protected and must not be copied neither used without my name included as its author and my permission to post it. Thank you!


So what is a joke? It is a ruining of your expectations. It is a surprise and that's why most jokes are not seemed as funny as they were when you heard them first time. The presented poem is a double entendre (sort of), as it suggests two meanings at the beginning: one may imagine a human or an imaginary friend at least, but ending with a punch line, crossing out other images. 

It can be also considered as dark humour, but is it for real? What is dark humour at all? I wrote an essay on this topic and it seems to be many things. Can one place this poem on a dark humour shelf only because of the "skull" word application or because the reader may imagine a skull made of organic material of, for example, 22 or less bones? In the matter of perspective and only it, I will give you, if you will allow me to, some extra information which might change the poem "shelf". Ready? Simon is a plaster model of a skull. So can it be considered as a dark humour example only because of the image it makes?

Forgotten. My short film.

I have done a lot of work to create this project and although I can see which bits I can improve to make the story even better, I am still proud of it. I wrote the script for it, draw a storyboard, did the camerawork and directing, designed and etc.

Two "films" are combined into one: the story itself is accompanied by a stop-motion part. I made this decision as stop-motion can remind the audience about paintings and awoke a feeling that everything in it is an illusion or a memory.

Cinematographic logline: Something out of their expectations.

The premise: A drama with gothic elements, telling about two scientists who become extremely interested in a story of an artist living ages ago. As her paintings have disappeared with her, nobody can touch or even get to know her art closer… or can? Is there still any purpose in it if it feels like it has never existed? Can science and art understand each other? The characters of this story try to answer these questions.

The audience watches the film within a certain perspective, point of view (POV). The way it sees it is a decision made by the filmmaker, who wants to tell the story. Forgotten tells the story from two points of views: from the perspective of Matthew and Piter as the audience should experience the same artistic awake they do, and from the perspective of something as powerful as Time. The audience has more information rather than the two present characters: it knows how Lily looks like, it knows that she was called a witch and therefore has some thoughts about the reason she died (maybe she was killed and the fire was neither a mistake nor accident but a directed murder committed by the people afraid of her), it sees that Piter sits on the same tree Lily sat before… At the same time the audience watches through Piter’s eyes as it:

- Cannot see anything on the wall when Matthew can.

- Sees paintings simultaneously with Piter in the end.

- Can hear Piter’s voice over aka his thoughts.

Therefore, the storytelling mode of narrative can be considered as the first person one, at the same time there is a third person mode of narrative, appearing with memories of Lily, quite subjective and placed behind the curtain. Who does watch Lily when she is in her house or outside of it? Who does see her drawing or is it her POV? Then who receives her memories? Has they been collected somewhere and being hold in a bottle to be splashed on the audience when they hear her story to make assumptions on what has happened years ago? There is a film called The Book Thief (2013, directed by Brian Percival), which has a voice representing Death, who watches at people from above and chooses people to follow. And Forgotten has a similar sense of someone following the characters, listening to them.

The story information received by the audience is given in portions and doses. In the beginning the topic is established, but rather slowly. The main idea was to surround the audience with small stylistic decorations to pour on its head the final information about the story purpose when the audience is ready and swims in the right atmosphere. This atmosphere is composed from specific sets:

- Nature, the establishing shot.

- Wall and stone, focusing on the discussion object.

- Matthew and Piter representing present.

- Shots of Lily presenting a gothic style.

- Shots of drawing and paint to add the artistic atmosphere.

- Shots of red paint to add some anxiety.

- Ballet shots and books’ pages shots to open Lily’s character more, showing her interests.

Forgotten can also be divided into three acts:

1. Introducing the main characters with the voice over.

Creative the necessary environment with the establishing shot of the field.

The discussion of the problem the main characters have.

And introducing their relationship via the use of phrases like “I don’t know why you’ve taken me here” showing they know each other for a long time. 

2. The confrontation crisis is the split between the characters when Piter decides to think over the problem on his own (Voice-over part).

The shots also give more information about the artist.

It results into the crescendo with the poem scene when all information is given.

3. The resolution is the summing up all thoughts the characters have.

But moreover they are going to have a “gift of the Magi” for this – the opportunity to see the ghost paintings. 

Returning to the point of time, place, and action. Although the place remains the same – the ruins or the house as it was ages ago, the time changes. The storyline begins with the present, now (early evening), in the ruins in the middle of nowhere to create a sense that it can happen anywhere.

Memories interrupt the narrative several times as they are too powerful for the present: one cannot stand but has to return to the times when Lily was alive, let’s call it the energy of the past. And because this place, this wall, and these ruins are full of this energy as she lived and created her pictures there, this energy is awaken and tries to get between the shots, between the dialogue’s parts.

In the woods.

Again, one of the poems of mine.
I wanted to maintain a Gothic atmosphere similar to some old fairy tales I read as a child.
I want to collect them in my hand, hinting at some psychological aspects of the tales, which do relate to the modern life, and show them to the reader. I hope I succeeded.


I beg you, my darling, don't cry - it will pass.
Don't follow your friend, cut your feet in the grass.
I promise to look back on the margin at last
Afore the first step to the woods.

The wind takes my hand, it pushes me inside;
Soon I'll be left with no friends on my side.
The first has her way, while wind cannot hide
Amidst curvy trees in green hoods.

The first step is not always the worst step at all.
Apparently it's just a response to the call.
Light as it is, it warns you will crawl,
Leaving a track in the woods.

To get more complicated and wavy it tends -
A frightful sign pointing at several ends.
But having a hope to greet both of my friends
I dream to emerge from the woods.


Anna Kavan, 2016.

The poem is well-protected and must not be copied neither used without my name included as the author and my permission to post it. Thank you!

1066. Battle of Hastings. My small poem.

The ray would toucheth again
Some sprinkl'd moss.
Survive, be brave, my thegn,
It comes, it's full of fuss.
1066. The end began.

The poem is well-protected and must not be copied neither used without my name included as its author and my permission to post it. Thank you!

It is not my opinion about the war.

One day I was a wandering bird...

One day I was a wandering bird
On an alder tree.
It was warm.
The figure was blurred,
But I believe in the sea
Someone was fighting the storm.

One man had no chance,
Had not flied away.
In panic I was looking for hand.
Just one little glance:
Here's a couple that stay
How lucky! - still on the land...

One day I was a wandering bird.
It was sunny,
I wanted to sing.
But I'm still trying to say a word
Through a glory
Ray in the spring.

Anna Kavan, 2015.


The poem is well-protected and must not be copied neither used without my name included as its author and my permission to post it. Thank you!