This year, in between deadlines, I've returned to a work in progress. It was orginally sparked by a place and fueled by drawing a map of an imagined version of that place. All this in response to a lecture on maps and imaginary worlds by the wonderful Julie Larios. So I've been thinking about the imagination and what it is. This sometimes leads me back to the fascinating series run for a time by the Philoctetes Center. The center itself is alas no more, but the video archive still exists on YouTube.

And then I found this in a post to the Hamline MFA faculty blog (now with alum and student contributors as well), The Storyteller's Inkpot: Jackie Briggs Martin on the story of poet Marie Ponsot.

Snippet from Jackie's post:

There is so much that I love about this story. The lifetime of writing because it gave her pleasure, the acclaim that eventually came, the persistence--sheer determination-- after the ransacking. It stiffens my spine.

Snippet from the NYT article on Marie Ponsot's struggle with aphasia:

Even so, she was able to accurately repeat a piece of advice that she had passed on for decades: anyone who wants to write should find 10 minutes a day.

What strange and terrible landscapes the body can produce in the mind.