“Spilled Ink” is a chapbook featuring suminagashi, photography, and poetry. It was completed during a stay at Wildacres Residency Program in North Carolina in 2016. This project was inspired by Amanda Palmer’s book, The Art of Asking, and is therefore not available for sale. But if you want a copy, just ask!
a Balanchine dancer
praised your sitting posturenow that you’re grown
I need to question you to understand—
a woman of another generation
I walk in the autumn softwood forest
with my cane—elegant fungus
grows along a tree trunk
palmate leaves
bigger than any gloves I’ve ever worn
turn green, yellow, brown, red
you say the paper sculpture
should be just about
as tall as you are
an enormous spider web
seems dropped into these woods
by Chihuly
you blow the line
of ink
across the standing water
if autumn were a woman
she’d be undressing now
for her date with solstice
the koan asks: for whom
do you adorn yourself
and make yourself beautiful?
-Miriam Sagan
Maternal Mitochondria 