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Sanstarr's Page

Ventura Beach

Welcome to Sandy Starr's Poetry/Photography/Art Page!

Hi. I am Sandy Starr, a writer/photographer and artist. I have written and taken photos for newspapers, magazines, and corporate publications for about 12 years now. I did a lot of work in public relations/publicity for a number of years, and I have been writing poetry since the 1960's.

My loves are poetry and photography, and an old love has re-surfaced recently in the form of art work.

I would like to share some of my work with you, and give you some hints about how to keep your muse close by, keep your eye and ear trained on the music and poetry and art around you, and be ready to get it down on a page.

I have learned over the years, to keep an eye open and ears listening for the poetry around me.
It's important to be open to what the world has to give you. Keep a tape recorder handy, or a pen and pad within reach for those times when something comes to you from out of the blue. You might even keep a camera, digital, disposable, whatever, close by for the moments when a photo presents itself. You can't get those words back once they fly by you. You can't get that photo back after you miss the opportunity. Watch, listen, write it down. Be ready to grab what floats in from your Muse or any other source.

I have had people tell me that they can't write about anything unless they are feeling really low, have the blues, are depressed or have just gone through something emotionally unsettling. I think writing often, looking at the ordinary in a different way, seeing art and poetry in the simplest of things is a way around that. Keep the wheels greased by writing often, even if it is in a journal or a letter to someone. Even if you sit and do timed writings for 5 or 10 minutes about any subject. By writing often, you more or less train yourself to more easily access areas that might stay locked up. You also move some of the painful things out that are blocking your ability to get to a broader area of your creativity. Write. Write. Write.

I use a number of things to trigger ideas and memories that might lead to poems. Photos. Art work. Music. Reading poetry by other poets, whether your favorite poets who never get old to you, or new undiscovered poets. You can find them on the web at numerous sites, or just go leaf through your local bookstore or library. Many of their ideas will trigger something from your own experiences.

One book that helped unlock numerous memories for me was Zen in the art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. I recommend it to you as a great book to help you access memories, and help you look at your personal experiences in all areas as a source for poetry, or stories. There are a lot of good books out there that give you guidance. Another good one is Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones.

WinterAngel

This is a photo I took 2 winter's ago up the canyon in front of my house. I am learning now to use computer art software to paint and draw, as well as work with my photographs to change them, enhance them, sometimes merge them with my drawings and paintings. This angel was created from another photo I took of clouds at sunset. I saw a face and wings in the photo. That's what I mean by keeping your eyes open for what is around you. Look at things differently. Look for shapes in clouds.

This isn't a red moon, which is what the poem is about, but it was an incredible moon this month (Feb. 2000) which lit the sky long before it even made it over the mountains.

Red Moon over Dauphin Island island is a poem I wrote after driving at night across the south and following a bright red-orange moon into Mississippi.

Red Moon Over Dauphin Island

We drove into night across Mississippi
chasing a red moon,
holed up in Jackson for sleep.
The moon slid over us on its way across the globe.
Do you think the Japanese noticed
the red moon that flew over their flag?
Morning found us moving on,
yellow sun as a guide into Alabama,
into the deep south, leading us off the edge
of land, across an arching bridge
into the waiting arms of friends.
That night, the moon returned
completely full,
and red again
painting patterns on a lazy tide
rolling onto shore.
We sat and listened to gentle lapping,
tinkling laughter on a soft breeze,
told tales,
cozxed memory,
and finally quieted
staring.
Hypnotized by that wild red moon.

This is a series of computer paintings I made from photographs of dancers. These are my interpretation of the dancers from a performance in New Mexico by the Bill Evans Dance Company.

Trio

SwingTap

RedYellow Dancer

El Fuego

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There have been many terrible things that have happened in the past couple of years, the likes of which I never dreamed I would see. I have been moved on numerous occasions to write about the painful events, partly as an outlet for my horror and pain, and partly to leave something of the essence of the victims in these incidents behind on a page, in an attempt at tribute, I suppose. This first was written after one of the terrible school shootings. The second, I wrote after the Oklahoma City bombing.
Peanut Butter Sandwich
I need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
some comfort food, something to take me back
to a more innocent time
when lunch was simple and good,
a time when my plaid bookbag smelled like
peanut butter and bananas,
when on the way home from school
the dust between my barefoot toes
was thick and hot and soft
and dogwood blossoms along the way
looked like sugarplums hanging in the woods.
Peanut butter and jelly on white bread~
soft and gooey stuff to fill a hungry stomach's
urgent need.
Soul food.
I can smell it now.
I want to go back, find a time when
all there was to worry about at school
was failing a test
having your homework done
getting caught passing a note
wearing the right skirt
having a good hair day
timing your passing in the hall just right
to see someone who made your skin tingle.
Give me peanut butter and jelly this dark morning before dawn
when sleep has left me for parts unknown
when images in my dreams have pulled me up
from a pit of sadness to search for light.
Let me hold onto innocence.
Let me forget that kids take guns to school,
that their backpacks and their bookbags
smell like death.
Oklahoma Storm
I have a friend I have teased for years
about being an "Oakie"
but I wonder now if Oklahoma
will ever again carry such whimsy,
sound like a musical,
like the widl west, the melodious wind,
a place full of dance and song.
Now the word feels like thunder
rolling off the tongue,
a dark throaty roll,
the earsplitting clap of the unexpected,
the unthinkable,
the thunder and darkness of a tornado breeding
storm cloud roaring in on insane hatred,
heartless evil.
Oklahoma.
In the blinding flash of a lightning strike,
it became the sound of a thousand
a thousand times that
hearts breaking, lives shattering, disbelief
crying out over and over
louder and louder,
bursting into the solar system, soaked up by
eternity,
wher it all became forever
the sound of silence--
of absense of the laughter and cries of babies,
of mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers.
It is now the low moan, the oul searing
horse whisper of those lost,
those who lost in a moment
in the thunderous din of a fraction
of fractured time.
In Oklahoma.

This was written when the horror was still real and raw. I know that this isn't what the state represents at all, but in some way I wanted to etch into history, at least for those who read this, what this meant to me and try to put into some kind of language the sadness and compassion I felt for all those impacted by the tragedies, and to acknowledge their losses.
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Monterrey

BeachDream

Spray

One of my favorite subjects for poetry is the ocean, the beach, the sea. It is my source of renewal and energy. I live in the desert and find myself at times with such a longing to go stand at the edge of land and breathe, that I have to write it down or the hunger will consume me. This first one is a poem of renewal, rebirth. The second a whimsical short poem that came about when I glanced at a seashell one day when it was getting ready to snow outside.
Renewal
How much longer must I go
with only memories tucked away in photo albums,
a jar of sand and shells in the windowsill
and dreams that bring the smell and sight and sound
of raring bluegreen waves
to sustain me?
Dry as dust
and empty,
my heart a vast desert landscape,
I need it now,
like a primal creature crawling on damp sand
among the seaweed and shell debris
left by waves and tide.
Let me gulp in great ragged breaths,
fill my lungs to bursting with wet salt air,
saturate my soul with peace.
let me begin again
at the sea.
Clouds and Shells
Snow clouds hover.
Seashell on the table beckons.
Fingers curl around rough ridges.
Held to ear, the sea tells its story.
Calls its wayward creatures home.

I have done a series of angel paintings that I will eventually have made into greeting cards. This is just a sample of them. Millennium Angel was the first one I did, right before the turn of the new year. I have her turning from dark into light, symbolic of the new year, new century, renewed hope. Golden angel was the second angel drawing I did. The angel ideas just kept coming to me. Sunset Angel was a drawing I did over a photo I took of a sunset.Red Angel with Dove is for peace. I think I will leave you with a wish for guardian angels in your life.
I hope you enjoyed the page. My e mail for comments or questions is Poeticsand@aol.com
Peace. (Check below for some of my favorite links)