Saturday, April 07, 2012

Liz Brownlee - Sea Star

Sea Star
by
Liz Brownlee


Sea stars used to be called starfish. Scientists changed their name as they are not fish, but echinoderms. They are hollow, with sensitive skin inside and outside - seawater flows into them as well as surrounding them. Their structures are higher in magnesium than other creatures. This makes them vulnerable to acidification of the seas, caused by carbon dioxide absorption.

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© Liz Brownlee. All rights reserved.

I first ran into Liz Brownlee on Facebook, though exactly where and why is now lost in the sands of cybertime. Yet soon, I'd journeyed to her website and... whoa! I love discovering new-to-me poets whose work, simply put, makes me happy.

Today's poem comes from Liz's upcoming book, Animal Magic (Poems on a disappearing world). As if the book is not enough, Liz is also blogging about endangered animals all month (26 times, in fact, going alphabetically). And yes, there are poems involved! I bet if you check them out and look at the poems on her website (including some animated ones), you'll be happy just like me. I'm looking forward to Animal Magic and more in the future, and I'm thrilled to have Liz Brownlee here as part of 30 Poets/30 Days.

Yesterday Bob Raczka gave us an answer to What Is Poetry? Tomorrow... Lorraine Marwood with Cockatoo - a Portrait! For more on 30 Poets/30 Days and ways to follow along, please click here.

8 comments:

Carol said...

Liz is new to me too, and of course, after I read this I had to rush over to her website and read more of her work! Definitely a new favorite! Thanks so much!

violet said...

So glad I came over here from the email posting, to see the cool shape. Liz is new to me. Thanks for the introduction!

(Technically, how does one do that--make lines typed text twist and turn?)

Amy LV said...

"sea in her soul" Oh, I am sighing too! This is haunting and lovely and captures so evocatively the mystery of sea stars. Thank you to you both! a.

Liz Brownlee said...

Thank you, everyone. The shape was made on a piece of software called InDesign, Violet. (Love your name!)Um - Illustrator to be more specific. I could do it roughly, but not as well as this, so a friend who is GOOD at it did it for me! I did find a photo of a brittle star, decided on the shape curves, sent an example, and he did it from that. My words were a bit scrunched. I think you can do it on Photoshop as well, as long as you have the complete version.

kevan atteberry said...

this is wonderful. It was an interesting exercise to read it linearly and then to reread it - see it - in its original form. Well done.

tanita✿davis said...

Oooh. I really, really, really like this one. And, you can read some of the lines forwards and back!

Charles Waters said...

Ahhh. A concrete poem at 30/30. A nice change of pace. Well done Liz!!!!!

Liz Brownlee said...

Thank you, Charles!