moon, mutable orb
pitch ceaselessly waxes, wanes
tides ever tuning
~
I love to revisit old work and see what I might tease from it. Is this an improvement or something entirely new? I’ll let you decide. The original:
light, vacillating
orb waxes, fills, wanes, renews
still, daily moves tides
~
Play on, fellow wordsmiths.
~ Tanya
as always: photo and words©️2024 Tanya Cliff
A photo share:
Photos ©️2024 Tanya Cliff
A newly divorced portrait painter retreats to the abandoned and secluded mountain home of a famous artist in hopes of healing and rediscovering his passion for art. Seeking the source of a strange noise in the attic, he discovers a masterpiece wrapped in paper and inexplicably tucked away from the world’s view.
As he unwraps the painting, he reveals a mystery and sets in motion a series of strange happenings. His journey to discover the truth will lead him on a dangerous journey to the underworld.
In this brilliant novel translation, released as two books in Japan, Murakami transcends narrative expectation (if there is such a thing) to envelop the reader in a world that is literal in its loneliness, palpable in its characterizations of person and place, and yet deeply haunting and surreal. The novel weaves subtle threads of suspense, gradually pulling them until the tension, taut as the strings of a highly pitched guitar, bind this reader; I can’t look away. I don’t dare. Following the first-person protagonist, I must travel deep into the netherworld. I must know how it ends.
In Killing Comendatore, Murakami lures his readers to a spellbinding place. It’s easy to convince a reader that the sky is blue. Murakami convinces me that the sky is a gateway to an alternate reality, one as expansive as the universe, as dark as death, as bright and tiny as the tinkling of a small bell.
This is what I am reading this Wednesday.
What’s on your read pile? I’m always looking for a good, next book suggestion. All genres welcome.
Best, Tanya
Snow slowly melts.
Frigid rivulets
form dangling daggers.
Moonlight, through jagged reflections,
flashes pointed warning—
rising temps release nature’s knives.
©️2024 Tanya Cliff
It’s been a while since we’ve seen this much snow in the Driftless Region. The husky is happy! It’s also been too long since I’ve connected with my WordPress friends and family.
In case you were wondering where I’d run off to, I’ve been working full-time on my MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College in Boston. That, and balancing work and family responsibilities. Thrilled to announced I crossed the thesis threshold in December and have graduated 🎓. I’ve learned so many things about writing, life, and myself on this journey, some of which I hope to share as we get caught up over coffee and maybe a good book or two.
For now, I’ll express my gratitude toward my family, mentors, and amazing Emerson cohort, without whom I wouldn’t have gotten to the finish line. Of course, it’s really the beginning of the next adventure. Glad to have you along for the journey.
Tanya
So excited to share my latest story, “Joan, Existing in the Hours of Daisies and Sunflowers,” recently published alongside the stellar fiction in Stork Magazine. Special thanks to Taylor McGowan for her editorial prowess and fabulous live read on launch day and to Katherine Fitzhugh for the beautiful illustration. 🌻
Also, heartfelt thanks to Pamela Painter for her skilled guidance. Without her, this story would have never blossomed. 🌻
Read the story at https://issuu.com/storkstory/docs/stork_spring_2022/41 🌻
An Octopus with a Narwhal Tusk by Tanya Cliff — NEW FLASH FICTION REVIEW
— Read on https://newflashfictionr-saf0s9gzxb.live-website.com/an-octopus-with-a-narwhal-tusk-by-tanya-cliff/
Hey WordPress friends, I’m thrilled to share that my story is live in Issue #26 of New Flash Fiction Review! It’s a flash fiction fast read.
“While Timmy’s puzzle concoctions drive me crazy, I can relate to him. My father abandoned me too. I was sixteen. He had terminal cancer. At least my dad didn’t have a choice.”
My Dog Tulip is J. R. Ackerley’s honest and often witty memoir of his years spent with his possessive, fiercely loyal, highly intelligent, sometimes insecure German Shepherd, Tulip (Queenie). Tulip, who began her life in a neglectful home, is a handful. A canine hero only to her master, and sometimes not even to him, Tulip presents a face to the outside world that is often short of charming. She barks and growls, she comes in between Ackerley and just about everyone else, she panics and pouts when she can’t be with him, and she doesn’t always listen to him. She also loves Ackerley, who freed her from her abusive home, with a devotion that inspires and intimidates.
Instead of resorting to anthropomorphic devices to bring Tulip into our human understanding, Ackerley allows Tulip to be the dog she is and, instead, brings us into her world. The magic of this book is that it provides a journey into the animal world in a manner that respects and tries to understand the animal on the animal’s terms, much like Monty Roberts did for horses in The Man Who Listens to Horses.
Consider Ackerley’s lament after Tulip had a late-night accident while they were guests in a friend’s home. Tulip had fussed and pawed at the door to get Ackerley to take her outside to relieve herself, but he, believing that she that just wanted to chase the friend’s cat, ignored her and went back to sleep. The dog, showing more sense than her owner, “laid her mess on the linoleum.”
I was more than touched. I was dreadfully upset. My pretty animal, my friend, who reposed in me a loving confidence that was absolute, had spoken to me as plainly as she could. She had used every device that lay in her poor brute’s power to tell me something, and I had not understood her. True, I had considered her meaning, but she was not to know that for I had rejected it; nor could I ever explain to her that I had not totally misunderstood but only doubted: to her it must have seemed that she had been unable to reach me after all. How wonderful to have had an animal come to one to communicate where no communication is, over the incommunicability of no common speech, to ask a personal favor! How wretched to have failed! Alas for the gulf that separates man from beast: I had had my chance, now it was too late to bridge it. O yes, I could throw my arms about her as I did, fondle and praise her in my efforts to reassure her that it was all my fault and she was the cleverest person in the world. But what could she make of that? I had failed to take her meaning, and nothing I could ever do could put that right.
Next up on the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die (James Mustich) list, three unique books by three unique Adamses: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams, and Watership Down by Richard Adams.
Happy reading, everyone! Feel free to share what you are reading or any favorite books about animals that you have read.
©️2020 Tanya Cliff
late spring freeze shocks bloom
snow falls on tender petals
patient blush persists
~
©2020 Tanya Cliff
A few months ago, I picked up a copy of James Munstich’s wonderful book, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, A Life-Changing List, thinking “someday” and “wouldn’t that be fun.” Then the coronavirus hit, and my thoughts changed to “now” and “because I can.”
A week into my reading adventure, I am midway through my third book in the A’s, Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abby, a compilation of nature-inspired essays based on the author’s three seasons as a park ranger in Arches National Monument in southeastern Utah in the days before that park was infiltrated by paved roads and thousands of tourists. The book strikes me as a cross between Aldo Leopold’s eloquent A Sand Country Almanac and Henry Miller’s brutal The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. Abbey’s insightful descriptions of the rugged beauty of unbridled nature and his unapologetic cries against the growing exploitation of those lands brought about by mining and tourism make for a lyric, poignant read. I am thoroughly engrossed.
“There’s another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate a man from the world around him. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light which it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.”
(Edward Abbey, from the essay, Solitaire)
If you are curious, I plan on continuing to log my progress through a weekly update here on WP, sharing snippets and thoughts from favorite books as I go. Please join me and share the books you are reading or want to read. Happy reading!
©️2020 Tanya Cliff
