Category: Creative Projects

Special FX Makeup: Scars

As soon as I walked into the classroom, I had flashbacks of teaching HS science. On one table lie mostly edible foodstuffs I had at home: Karo syrup, food coloring, cornstarch, and vaseline. Nestled in between the groceries were various makeup products along with toilet paper, cotton balls and paper towels. Welcome to Special Effects Makeup Class!

Our first task was making blood. Using 3/4 of a cup of Karo syrup, I mixed in about a tablespoon of red food coloring, two drops of blue, a drop of green and a little hot water. Since the syrup had a much higher density than the water and food coloring, I stirred it for quite a while. Even after it was well mixed, I simply enjoyed the sensation of stirring the fake blood and continued doing so while the instructor moved on to the next thing: wax.

Back in high school, I remember taking a drama club field trip to a theatre where one guy conducted a “blood and guts” workshop. The one thing that made an impression on me was the pliable mortician’s wax. Of course, I’d asked our instructor about it. She’d never used it, but had used other professional waxes made for theatre makeup.

With a dollop of vaseline and a scoop of cornstarch, I folded the mixture with a plastic knife. This combination was so unbelievably sticky that I made sure mine was well mixed to the consistency of butter cream before touching it.

Even so, once I touched it, I essentially dove in, rolling it out in the palms of my hands.  I should’ve eased into that. Had I tested just a little with my fingertips, I would’ve added more cornstarch into the cup. The second best thing to do was to dip the sticky ball of wax into the large bowl of cornstarch. I repeated that step several times until the stickiness disappeared without drying out the wax.

I then combined some foundation in a separate cup to match my complexion before adding it to the wax. As I did so, I wondered what I would have used if I’d been a darker Black person since there weren’t any darker foundations available. I probably would have had an awkward moment of asking how to darken the wax, using both foundation and food coloring.

My first project involved wax and cotton. I glued the cotton first, then the wax surrounding it, smoothing it down with a plastic knife to blend it better with my skin.

When I added the first layer of blood, this FX started to come alive. The instructor gave us words of wisdom, which guided us throughout the entire weekend workshop: blood makes everything better. So, I caked on the blood to hide the edges. At that point, I wished my fake blood was more gelatinous. That didn’t stop me from taking a picture and sending it to my family, however.

The only cosmetologist among us jazzed up her wounded hand with both eyeshadow and blood.

I entered class knowing I wanted to pull off a Ms. Sandman costume for my upcoming spoken word performance at The Austin Writers Roulette. My first attempt was to glue raw sugar to my skin. Since school glue contains water, the sugar dissolved and, together with my body heat,  the result was more like a gluey scrub than a sandy-looking costume.

My next project was to cover my eyebrow. This time, I used one of those purple glue sticks and a disposable eyebrow brush. First, I brushed the eyebrow hairs up and applied glue. After allowing it to dry, I brushed the hairs downward and added more glue. Once that dried, I added my premixed foundation. One of the reasons to cover eyebrows is if latex will be applied. Gluing down eyebrows will protect them from being ripped out when removing the latex afterward.

The next project involved staples and coarse aquarium sand. Still figuring out how to render my Ms. Sandman look, I went to a pet store after Saturday’s class. They were out of the sand I wanted, but the woman who helped me happened to have a fine arts degree and recommended coarse aquarium sand since she’d used it for her kids’ zombie costume. Although I felt sad that such a degreed artist had to support herself working at a pet store, at that moment, I appreciated her expertise.

Of course, I drenched the gash with blood, flooding the sand, but it still looked good.  The pet store sales associate said that the sand would look like bone fragments and it did once the excess blood oozed out. I could hardly wait to send that picture to my family, who were all at church at that time. I got some instant gratification when I walked to the front desk to show the intern. For a few seconds, he reacted as if I was actually injured, then he remembered which class I was in.

The instructor had also brought in liquid latex for me to try out. Our hypothesis was that the raw sugar wouldn’t dissolve in the latex and may hold better. That worked, but I still liked the coarse sand better, which was held in place with the latex. I also wanted to see if I was allergic to latex; so this patch test served several purposes.

Round two of the leg FX involved body paint, eyeshadow and wax. We made the body paint with shortening, cornstarch, food coloring and water. Unfortunately, we didn’t have actual zippers; so I painted a zipper, which looked more like DNA. Yet the real problem with my raised blood vessel was the fact I used wax. Far too heavy. I tried again this time with painted cotton. At least I could walk around with it.

My last project during the workshop was mermaid scales. I used prefab body paint, toilet paper and eyeshadow. First, I painted the black scale outlines, then I glued down the toilet paper. When I asked the instructor the best way to paint over toilet paper, she demoed the first scale, starting with body paint and dusting with shimmering eyeshadow to make the colors pop. The toilet paper itself added texture to the design.

The real test was on Sunday for the Roulette when I made my Ms. Sandman costume. Here’s the final result:

I’d set up a temporary makeup station on my patio because I wanted to limit the amount of sand in my apartment. I had such an enjoyable time painting that cool-to-the-touch latex on my face. The  scary part was having to lean over the balcony backwards to dust my face with sand.

I allowed it to dry while I cleaned up the station before heading back inside to finish my makeup and put on my dress. I had a bra full of sand, but thank goodness none had entered any orifice except the sand on my lips occasionally got into my mouth. Yet that was worth the effort since dabbing lipstick on top of it made for a really interesting effect.

All that wonderful playtime made me about 15 minutes late to my own call time for the show–something which had never happened since I started the show back in 2012. Well, first time for everything!  We still started on time and had a fabulous show.

All Knowing Mother

In honor of Mother’s Day, I reflected about the unsung contributions of Black women such as the generational and social network of wisdom. To represent the Black Woman Network, I used an African paper doll template, complete with a curly afro. Taking advantage of the gift of fabric given to me by a friend, each of the 12 African cloth cutouts graced a different decoration.

The T-shirts read, “A Black Woman Probably Did It First.” In the great tradition of shining a light on something we in the Black community have taken for granted, but the world now cannot live without, I present to you the following: The Internet.

I’m not saying that Black women invented the internet. I’m saying we WEREthe original internet, especially my mother’s generation and the Black women who came before them. Their network of knowledge passed from neighbor to neighbor, flowing from one generation to the next. If they didn’t know the answer, they knew who could supply an accurate answer. News traveled so far and fast among the network of Black women that it took the male-dominated fields of science, math and engineering centuries to approximate, match and finally surpass the natural efficiency of the Black Woman Network.

My foremothers never needed any fancy cumbersome gadgetry to disseminate their wisdom as they went about their wifely, motherly, daughterly, womanly duties. We are always so bedazzled by the bells and whistles of electronic devices that we dismiss the greater foundational basis of wisdom, information and entertainment. Sometimes mischaracterized as idle gossip, the network also provided social status long before friending, tweeting or liking on social media platforms. Back when “facetime” actually implied interacting with someone face to face. And not showing your face meant you were either ashamed or told not to be present in a space or event as in “you better not show face here again.” If someone defied that warning, they got a “you got a lot of nerve showing your face here” reaction.

Ever needed a recipe, home remedy, natural cleaning product, hair product, or know who has been born/graduated/married/divorced/diagnosed/died, moved away, moved back, moved on, or just updated on how your great uncle’s youngest daughter’s husband’s grandmother fared in her recent hip replacement, because remember I told you she had the first one done two years ago? Then ask a member of the Black Woman Network.

Depending on the age of the participating Black women, their depth of knowledge reflects their collective richness in wisdom. And make no mistake: they’ve seen it and heard it all and in their combined experienced, they’ve done it all. We may laugh at the refusal of older Black women to abandon outdated technology and upgrade to modern conveniences that younger generations cannot live without, but nothing’s really new under the sun. No matter how fancy and high tech we think we are, we’re still the same human beings who used to huddle together in caves around a fire, subjected to the same shortcomings and fragilities as we always have been.

As a consequence of being brought to this country in chains, Black women learned the intimate details of the human condition from slave to enslaver. Fusing traditions they’d learned from their homeland with survival strategies in their strange land, the network regularly updated and not just at 2 AM. For the first couple of centuries, knowledge couldn’t be written down since literacy for them was illegal. Imagine how much wisdom has been lost when the minds which housed such treasure troves died.

Yet, the Black Woman Network persisted.

Throughout the constant gaslighting of not having souls to not having the intellectual capacity to not having citizenship to not having the vote to not having property to not having credit to not having agency to not having…they had one another.

Generations upon generations of Black Woman Network motherwit. Against so many odds. Working at least twice as hard to get half as much. Whether her contributions were trivialized or in some unbelievable instances, even criminalized, I honor my own mother and the network of mothers who came before her for minding everyone’s business and ensuring we progressed.

Randomized Headshot

I’m always impressed by the high-tech art displayed at the Interactive Installation Meetup events.  Who knows if I’ll ever understand any of it on a coding level, but theoretically I know what’s going on. So, I sat in front of a laptop, which took my headshot. Then the program randomly chose pixels to recreate the headshot. I’m not exactly sure what other algorithms were at play because the portrait originally looked just like a stylishly pixelated photo.

As time passed, the image became increasingly randomized. I think this was both a cool effect and tapped into everyone’s ego. How often can we see a distorted image of ourselves without it being a distorted sense of ourselves?

Aunt Teresa’s Burlesque Dictionary

Last Christmas, when my immediate family got together, I had a few conversations with one of my nephews, who was 25 at the time. During our conversations, he asked me what certain words, like “ambiguous” and “prolonged,” meant since I’d peppered my conversations with such vocabulary. At one point, I told him that if he’d read more, he’d know the meaning of those words.

Unlike other members of my immediate family, I’m not induced into thinking that just because this particular nephew is on the autism spectrum that he can’t do better. I’ve witnessed him manipulate other people, especially my parents, into doing things for him. He ‘d mastered that behavior at age three. Since I’ve lived out of town for most of his life, I have always seen through the learned helplessness charade. Not every struggle can be written off as intellectual disability, especially with someone smart enough to scheme.

For that Christmas, I’d gifted him a nonfiction book and two literary magazines. I knew he liked history and the novel was about a married autistic man’s journey to being a better father and husband by learning how to be more empathetic–lessons I thought my nephew needed to learn as well.

Just on a fluke, I told him for next year’s Christmas gift (2017), I’d get him a dictionary to help build his vocabulary. Then I added that I’d probably had to decorate it with pictures to get him to read it. I asked him with which kind of pictures he’d like me to decorate the dictionary.

“Big titties and Kim Kardashian!” he answered without the slightest hesitation.

I told him I wasn’t going to buy any porn, but I still kept the request in mind as I flew back to Texas. The more I thought about it, the more I was intrigued with the challenge of modifying a dictionary to the point that a 25 year old man would actually look at every page.

So, on January 2nd, I went to Half Price Books and checked out the reference section. I wanted a dictionary that had around 300 or fewer pages, medium-to-large print, hardbound, and thickish pages. I loved the irony of the small print at the top of my dictionary choice: “A vocabulary book for people who don’t need one.” Oh, my nephew definitely needed one!

While at the checkout counter, I told the guy my intentions for buying the dictionary. Then I asked him what Half Price Books did with their old magazines, emphasizing that I didn’t want porn. He directed me to the recycling center in the back of store, telling me that perhaps there were some gentlemen’s magazines that hadn’t been recycled them yet.

So, I explained my project to one of the women who worked in the recycling center. As fortune would have it, she had a shopping cart full of vintage Maxims and similar magazines. She handed me a heavy stack of 12 magazines. I’d originally thought I’d have to go through a lot of junk mail to get such pictures from racy ads. The universe conspired for me!

Then, I went to one of my favorite craft stores, told the story behind the dictionary project and asked for a recommendation for a pen I could use to write on the pages. Again, the cashier was more than happy to direct me to the scrapbooking section where I found gel pens that were chemically neutral and wouldn’t bleed. My intention was to write a comprehensive sentence at the top of each page, using the framed vocabulary word.

When I say “framed,” I mean just that. For each page, I planned to paste, using the acid-free glue sticks I bought at the craft store, an eye-catching picture, which will cover up some of the other words.  With colored pencils, I’d create a colorful scenic/decorative background to make all the other words on the page recede, leaving one vocabulary word and its definition(s) uncolored; so he’ll be able to see the definition of vocabulary word I write at the top of the page.

In about six weeks time, I’d decorated every page with, what one woman had referred to as “cheesecake shots.”

Regardless of whether the page had text on it or not, I made use of all the available space.

The overall plan was to add inspirational quotes from famous women on those pages where no vocabulary word was highlighted. Since my nephew is a history buff, I wanted to make sure he’d read the words of a variety of successful and influential women.

Based on which word I chose to highlight, I glued an appropriate-sized picture for that page.

After all the pictures were placed, I then boxed in the highlighted word, using a gel pen. 

For certain pages, such as the index, I wanted my nephew to still be able to use them, yet I decorated those pages as well and added the inspirational quotes later.

The next step involved writing sentences for each highlighted word. Ever the perfectionist, I knew I’d edit them later. Yet the sentences guided me on how to decorate the dictionary with colored pencils and stencils. Having the handwritten sentences were much easier to reference and saved ink and paper of printing out typed up sentences.

I thumbed through the book to see which pages needed inspirational quotes from famous, successful women. Those identified pages were the ones that had no highlighted vocabulary word. So, I knocked out getting quotes for those pages in one setting.

The most intense labor of love had to be designing the background for all the pages with highlighted words. I spared my sanity by searching for image outlines online to print and trace rather than drawing them freehand. This saved time and helped make the illustrations look better.

Just think: mastering cutting paper and coloring in kindergarten still served me so well much later in life.

October 7th marked a significant day in the making of the burlesqued dictionary: all the hand-illustrated backgrounds were completed! Months of reading the sentences; looking up a black and white outline to copy and paste into a word document; printing out the outlines to use as stencils; finally tracing and coloring the resulting backgrounds.

The penultimate stage has begun. I’m now writing in the inspirational quotes on the pages that lack vocabulary. I’m not sure that I can take the project out to other places and complete this stage like I could when tracing and coloring the backgrounds. I could still follow conversation while doing those things, but I’d like to have no conversational obligation when copying sentences. I need more concentration. At least I have white out.

I figured this last stage would zip by. Compared to designing the backgrounds by hand, this last step in dictionary design was a breeze. The only things that slowed me down was when I inevitably edited the sentence or had to white out something that was sloppily or erroneously written. Nonetheless, what a pleasure to revisit the example sentences I’d written just months ago.

Once I completed writing the sentences by mid-October, the only thing left was to scan all the pages for prosperity’s sake. Thank goodness I finished relatively early since I needed to practice the scanning technique. Most importantly, with all the choices I could save the images to, I initially had no idea which format worked best for which platform.  I’ve since learned that TIFF is the best for an overall record; PDF is best for book publishing; and JPEG is best for this blog! I’ve no idea what PNG is good for. I’m sure I’ll find out after I’ve gifted the dictionary to my nephew!

I forewent the normal Christmas card and wrote out my thoughts on an index card instead. Even so, I don’t think I tricked him into thinking it was a normal study guide.

Speaking of whom, here’s the satisfied gift recipient.

And just as I’d hoped, he’s now reading in bed! Now, all that remains is how many words he’ll actually learn. At least other people can build their vocabulary as well, reading Aunt Teresa’s Burlesque Dictionary.

Puzzle T-Shirt

Once again, I dealt myself a challenging costume card. Not only did I have just shy of a week to complete the latest outfit, but I first had to put together a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Following tried and true puzzle logic, I first separated out the edges, even setting aside the few pieces that were already together.

I took a risk with this puzzle since I’d bought it from Goodwill and the box had already been opened, but at least the previous owner hadn’t completely broken up all the puzzle. I’d just hoped that no pieces were missing.

Over the next four days, I binge-watched “Stranger Things” while putting the puzzle together. Apparently I was overexerting myself because I felt a little feverish and met myself coming and going to refill my water glass. My work paid off toward the end of the week when I finally put the last piece in place. Then, I leisurely removed swatches, brushed puzzle glue on top of them and set them aside to dry.

Once I had all the swatches I wanted, I bagged up the rest of the puzzle.  After all, why should I put the remaining pieces back in the box since there were now gaping holes? At least I bagged pieces that all went together.

The next morning, the glue on the swatches had dried and then I used my crafting nemesis: spray glue. For this step, I went outside on my balcony and put on even shittier clothes than what I normally wear around the house. I’d turned a gray T-shirt inside out, sprayed one swatch at a time and placed it on the T-shirt.

Trump’s “Art of the Deal” swatch went on the back of the T-shirt.

I gingerly put the shirt on since the stiffness of the puzzle pieces made it seem as if I could pop them off with one inadvertent flick. Fortunately, there weren’t any casualties, even when I put on my seatbelt and the times I sat down. After I read my spoken word piece, “Interactive Life Puzzles,” I gifted every audience member, including the bookstore employees, two plastic bags of puzzle swatches. I hope to hear/see what those other creative souls did to repurpose their pieces of the ’80s.

Graduation Gift 2017

When my first niece graduated from high school, I gifted her a hand-made, monogramed laundry bag. It didn’t last too long. Since I learned my lesson, I bought a laundry bag to personalize for my other niece. Thanks to my handy chalk pencil, I outlined a rough draft message.Although I had a rainbow’s worth of colors to choose from, I selected four.

This was the first time I used 3D fabric paint, but I had very little trouble with it except keeping the pressure consistent. Nonetheless, I smoothed out the paint to make it look the same.

I presented the gift to my niece, and to my horror, the paint had stuck to itself while in transport. I had to pull it apart much harder than I wanted to, but at least the damage was minimal and she was happy with the message.

100% 2017

For the first time since I’ve been participating in the Carver Museum’s 100% fundraiser for its educational programs, I used a lot of 3D material. I knew when I first received those silk tiger lilies that I ‘d repurpose them for this painting.

Since I had my painting breakthrough a few years ago, I’ve shortened the process by looking up the image I want to paint, printing it out, cutting it out, then tracing it on the canvas. With a road map to follow, the canvas has more than a prayer’s chance of turning out the way I want it.

I’m not too proud to admit that I really cannot draw and have very little motivation to get better at drawing, especially since I’m not the world’s best painter either. Yet, I love the painting process far better than I enjoy drawing.

Besides, my overall canvas quality has a chance of being its best when I use my shortcut and allows me to spend the most time on doing what I enjoy. As a matter of fact, I’m even happier that I saved myself time and frustration not drawing freehand since I had to trial and error my way through attaching those flowers far more than I originally thought.

Last time I checked, I had two bids on my painting, which makes me happy that someone found my work bid-worthy and it’ll fetch some money for the Carver’s educational program.

Project Row Houses

One of my friends sent me a call for submissions link, inviting Black female artists to do a voice recording of a famous Black writer. The recordings would then be played in one of Houston’s historic project row houses. On Sunday, May 21st, we made a 3-hour road trip to visit the installation.

By the time we found the place, we had about 45 minutes to view the houses. We first checked in at the main office both to use the bathroom and to speak to the artist who was on duty at the time. Just so happen that she had been planning to move to Austin sometime in the hazy future and wanted to create a similar project there. My friend exchanged social media information with her and I gave her my card and invited her to attend The Austin Writers Roulette.

The first row house installation we visited was dedicated to the Black women who were affected by police injustice. The sound recording played a Black female choir, singing about being their sister’s keeper. 

The adjacent row house had been wallpapered with block print designs except for the wall, which had been painted black. A screen had been installed. A video that scrolled the words to the recorded recitations, which played on a loop. We sat on a lone bench, listening and reading the words to ourselves as the recorded voice recited the passage. When my recording came, I ran up to the screen to pose with my passage. I love that the only word that photographed clearly was “MAGIC.”

After experiencing the installation, I used my phone to find a nearby upscale cafe. Initially, I wasn’t in the mood for “salad and sandwiches,” but I figured since we had a 3-hour trip back to Austin and they had a wine menu, this would be a quick meal to get us back on the road.

For the most part, that happened. I ordered their signature salad with smoked salmon and a glass of Malbec. My friend ordered her entree and a glass of wine. Everything came out in a reasonable amount of time although I had to ask the other server for water since that’s the one thing our server forgot to bring.

And then it happened. During our conversation and dining, time ticked on and we became invisible. I noticed our invisibility sooner than my friend since she was animatedly talking while her back was to most of the restaurant. She couldn’t see how the two servers buzzed around, interacting with all the other tables except ours. Our server briefly noticed us when he had to rearrange the small tables where we were seated to accommodate a larger party. He removed my friend’s empty entree plate before moving our table over along with the other smaller tables that shifted to the right to accomodate another large party at the far end.

That was the last time we had his attention. He flitted among the other tables in our row, especially the original large party to my immediate right and the newly gathered large party at the other end to my left. He even checked on the table to my immediate left, which was just a couple, but would turn on his heel away from our table, missing the few nonverbal attempts I made to get his attention by raising my hand and checking his eye.

I think it’s obnoxious to raise my voice to get a server’s attention.  Or tap, grab or otherwise touch servers as they’re hustling around every other table. Besides, as I observed our server’s interactions with the other tables, none of those people had to do that to get his attention. They were successful at nonverbal and nontactile gestures.

That’s when I started to play my least favorite game: Intersectionality. There’re two versions of the game: Invisible and Singled Out. In one version, the player tries to figure out why she’s been suddenly rendered invisible within a seemingly normal situation. In the other version, the player tries to figure why she’s been suddenly singled out within a seemingly normal situation. And when I say “seemingly normal situation,” I’m referring to how everyone else that the player sees is NOT experiencing the same treatment.

Whichever version of the game the player unwittingly finds herself in, she analyzes how she got there. So, in my case, was it racism, sexism, classism, a combination or something else? I easily dismissed classism since we were dressed better than most although I’m sure we weren’t the most moneyed people there.

The next thing I ruled out was mere racism. The café was filled with a rainbow of hues, including interracial couples and mixed raced tables. Even the parties where there weren’t any white people still had servers approaching them.

That’s when I noticed we were the only table without a guy. Even the two black guys who sat together at the bar hadn’t turned invisible. Since our server was an Asian male, I wondered if he had a predisposition to focus on men. Ironic because he had a female boss.

At one point, during a break in my friend’s conversation, I blurted out, “Do you notice that we’ve become invisible?” She readily agreed and volunteered to talk to someone about it. I thanked her since I’m normally the one who has to have the confrontational talk in such situations. Her response: “Well, you drove.”

She calmly arose from the table and confidently strode to the bar where the other server was. In the distance, I saw the polite smile on her face as his expression transformed. Then, just as calmly as she’d left, she returned to the table, leaving him to scramble to get a water pitcher and dessert menus together.

Essentially, she’d informed him that we were from Austin and we had not come to Houston to have a Black Moment. However, our server had not refilled our water glasses when he refilled the other tables to either side of us nor had he told us about dessert. We’d just overheard the description of it when he told the large party beside us about it.

The other server refilled our water glasses and brought us menus before I witnessed him approach our server and tell him our concerns. With much remorse, our server arrived at our table and apologized. He told us that he’d been very distracted by the two larger tables.

At that point, I held my tongue since the table to my immediate left was just two people, who had received the server’s attention, which I’d concluded was because at least one of them was a guy. While I had that inner conversation, our server described to us the delicious locally made ice cream. We both ordered the Nutella with studded marshmallows, which he comped.

I ate my free ice cream with less enjoyment than dessert usually brings me. It was a nice gesture, but I’d much rather had paid for my ice cream with money versus his embarrassment of rendering us invisible.

I realize this was an “isolated incident” only in the sense that the conflict was de-escalated and resolved peacefully and had not become an on-going protracted argument between the server or the cafe and me. However, that isolated incident has become the latest star in my personal intersectionality constellation. There are quite a few stars in that constellation. They vary in size and intensity. All the isolated incidents forming a pattern that’s easily recognizable to others who have similar constellations of their own.

When I look inwardly and mediate on a reimagined freedom, I see my constellation where no more stars have been added.

Haiku Death Match

As part of the 25th Austin International Poetry Festival, I hosted my first ever haiku death match. In the beginning, I was only supposed to host my own spoken word and poetry show, The Austin Writers Roulette.  Then, I accepted the offer to host and perform for as an opener for Bucolics Anonymous. Later, I agreed to host this event.

I’d half paid attention to the one haiku death match I watched over a year ago. Like a dutiful Virgo, I looked up the rules, typed them into my phone and then left my phone at home, rushing out the door to arrive at the venue early.

I had two different plans in mind just in case I had a slew of participants or if I hardly had any participants. For the former case, I’d have two poets read one haiku each and have the judges vote one of the pair off the stage in a sudden elimination round. Then when I got to the next round, with hopefully no more than 4 poets, I’d allow them to read more than one in the round to allow the judges to award 1st through 3rd place. 

The only female participant, Ailana Larson, signed up first.

Followed by Marsh Muirhead, then the host from the previous AIPF event, Chip Ross.

Just when I thought the judges, who were not associated with the festival, had to merely distinguish places among the three poets, a fourth poet threw his monkey wrench into the ring. Steve Kocen wrote all five of his haikus moments before the competition.

In the meantime, I rounded up four chairs and put them on stage. Once both Chip and Steve had finished their poems, I invited the poets to be seated on stage. First, I introduced them. Then I explained the rules: read one haiku per round for five rounds; then, I’d gather the judges and we’d discuss the order of the winners. One thing I failed to mention, because I hadn’t read it in any of the rules, was that each poet would read his/her haiku twice. I guess that’s common sense, but not for me! I’m more of a limerick and free verse kind of poet.

After five rounds…our fourth place winner was Steve Kocen. Now, I’d just so happen to have brought with me some Peace Corps posters, bookmarks and stickers.  As a matter of fact, I’d given both Ailana and Marsh stickers for being prepared and the judges bookmarks and stickers for participating as judges. So, it was only fitting that I gave Steve a poster.

Our third place winner was Ailana Larson. She received her medal, certificate and trophy.

Our second place winner received his bling and even gifted me one of his books of haiku. Then, an amazed Chip Ross received his first place bling.

Now that I have successfully hosted my first haiku death match, I suspect I’ll be asked to do that again unless someone else has a burning desire to do so!