Joanne N. Ford, Jennifer Haigh, and Marie Stern

Therapy in Photographic Time - Joanne N. Ford
(A Tribute to Ansel Adams)

Today’s therapy session will be off the record.
There will be nothing to interpret.
No scenarios of what is or might be.
Nothing to analyze; except the photograph
Of the mountain peaks and the heavy clouds
Heaving themselves against the native skies.
We’ll discuss how the soft winter light
Glides as smoothly as oil
Above the timberline and the shadows
Leaving traces on the brazen plains.
How still everything is and how thin the pockets of air are.
The trees with their stark pencil branches
Leaving sketch marks across the valley below.
We’ll wonder about the snow descending (ever so slowly)
Like yesterday’s pain blanketing and wrapping itself
Around the troubled heart and mind.
Perhaps, today we’ll learn something new.
Solve some problem hidden in the darkroom.
Photographic paper emerging from the tray of chemicals,
Erasing the deepest darkness as it ascends upwards,
Thundering, Spirit-fire flashing across the horizon.



COMPASS ROSE interviews Jennifer Haigh:
Compass Rose:
Your recent novel, Baker Towers, has been lauded for its historical accuracy. Was there anything in particular that drew you to 1940s America?

Jennifer Haigh:
Well, the war changed everybody’s life: the young men who went away to fight, the families and lovers who stayed behind. In the post-war period, towns like Bakerton were truly transformed. Lots of people left, and new people came. This made for interesting times. (more)



The Dying Sounds, by Marie Stern.
The light from the TV made Jason’s face look biliously gray, anemic. “I didn’t think you could get through the biological clock anymore. There just aren’t those kind of loopholes. That’s gotta be faked. There’s no way." (more)