The Storms have crossed the Atlantic. I was delighted today when the post office delivered my copy of the inaugural issue of The Storms, a journal of poetry, prose, and visual art that includes two of my photographs. The Storms is a printed journal, which is increasing rare these days, that was made in Ireland with international contributors, with support from The Arts Council Ireland and the Fingal Arts/Fingal County Council. Check out this link for more information on The Storms.
How in the world did I get involved in this effort? Believe it or not, WordPress played a role. Several years ago I became friends with Liz Cowburn, the New Zealand-based author of the blog Exploring Colour. Through her blog, I became acquainted with the work of Irish poet Damien B. Donnelly and his blog DeuxiemePeauPoetry. At that time Damien was living and working in Paris as a pattern maker and writing poetry part-time.
During a trip to Paris in November 2019, I was thrilled to meet Damien in person. We had a wonderful time together sharing some of our personal experiences. Check out my December 2019 posting Paris Portraits: Damien for more of the back story and details of our encounter. At that time, Damien was preparing to return to Ireland to pursue his dream of becoming a poet full-time, with a goal of finding and renovating a property in Ireland that will serve as a writers’ retreat and bed-and-breakfast.
Then the pandemic happened. Damien quickly pivoted and found new avenues for his creativity. He started a poetry podcast Eat the Storms—the name is drawn from the title of his first poetry pamphlet—that is already in its fifth season and has featured hundreds of poets from all around the world. I have seen him read his poetry numerous times during Zoom and it has been a delight each and every time. He has also managed to find time to create TikTok and YouTube videos of some of his poems—be sure to check out his YouTube channel for some delightful content. In just a few days, he will launch his first full collection called Enough, that features poems and photography from his time in Paris.
One of his projects became The Storms, which he edited and designed, with the able assistance of his wonderful sub-editor Gaynor Kane. I have been a spectator cheering from the sidelines for numerous poetry readings, but when the submission window was opened for this journal I noticed that it included “visual art.” Did I dare submit some of my photos for consideration? The rules said that I could submit only three images and that the file names could not include any personal identification—all submissions would be read blind.
I think that I am a pretty good photographer, but I guess I am a little insecure about entering contests or submitting my work for consideration. Am I good enough? Some of my poet friends tell me that you get used to having your work rejected, but I wasn’t so sure I was thick-skinned enough. I decided to be bold, though I set my expectations low, and selected three images to submit. Amazingly two of them were selected.
The only guidance we were given was that the theme of the issue was going to be storms and that we could interpret it any way that we wanted. The two images that were selected for use both were taken during my November 2019 trip to Paris. The first one shows a bicycle on the wet cobblestones of a Parisian street, with the light from a streetlight causing a distorted shadow. The image appeared for the first time in one of my blog posting entitled Bicycle in Paris. In The Storm, the image was used on the title page of a section entitled “Showers of Survival”—the journal was thematically divided into nine sections,
The second image that was used showed a rainbow in between two buildings in Paris. It first appeared in a November 2019 blog posting entitled Rainbow in Paris. In the journal, the rainbow photo appears on the title page of a section entitled “Beyond the Rainbow,” the final section of the the journal.
It is hard to describe how cool it feels to see my photos in print and I just wanted to share some of that joy with you all. So many of you have encouraged and supported me on my journey in photography during the last ten years. Thanks.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
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Mike Powell 