4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
72 degrees
dew point: 63
Went to bed early (before 10!) with the hopes of getting up early and running before it was too warm. Woke up at 7:30 and didn’t start running until almost 9. It was hot! Still, I did my 9/1, with only one extra break. A small victory: I didn’t fall apart after the extra break, even though I thought I might. I got right back on track and ran the rest until I reached 9 minutes. Wore my compression socks again today — they make a big difference.
10 Things
- a broken fence rail — I have been calling the wooden fence a split rail, but is it? It’s not a picket fence. It is 2 horizontal wooden slats, painted brown. Looked it up — ranch?*
- yellow caution tape blocking off the new trail-in-progress just past the double bridge
- someone at the playground, pushing their bike through the mulch or pebbles or whatever’s in the playground pit, making a scraping noise
- 2 people on the bridge overlooking the falls, holding a giant selfie stick
- the dirt trail leading into the woods near ford bridge, looking dark and mysterious and inviting
- the rush of the creek and the falls
- someone sitting at the bench above the edge of the world
- a voice below, on the winchell trail, commanding (or scolding) a dog
- a dozen roller skiers on the trail
- the coxswain’s voice below — rowers!
*Looked up what type of fencing Minneapolis Parks uses and found this in their latest planning proposal:
Fencing and Guardrails
- Locate fencing and guardrails to protect park users from injury near steep bluffs, drop-offs along trails, overlooks, boardwalks, and bridges. They can also be used to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from conflicts with motor vehicles in certain situations.
- Fencing and guardrail design and materials should be consistent throughout the park to convey a strong sense of park identity and character.
- Fencing materials and design in high use areas such as along the parkways, urban parks, and other highly visible areas should be more formal. The existing black metal picket fencing along many portions of the park is a good example of this type of character.
- Fencing in less formal and natural areas, such as along the Winchell
- Trail, should use less formal fencing and guardrail materials and design character. Here, timber and chain link fencing may be more appropriate.
- All proposed fencing and guardrails shall meet MPRB standards.
converting notes into poetry
Yesterday, during my On This Day practice, I came across a line from Dan Beachy-Quick that led me from his poem, This Nest, Swift Passerine, to Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal, which her brother, William Wadsworth, used in his poetry. I recall encountering D Wordsworth’s journal then, in 2023, and thinking I’d like to read more of it, but I was busy with some other project. Maybe I put it on my epic “To Do” list that I rarely return to.
I wanted to read more of DW’s journal because I’m fascinated by how writers might use their journals and observing-while-moving notes in their poetry.
I’m also thinking about how poets incorporate research into their poetry. Read this morning, in an interview with Kristin Dykstra, about her new poetry collection, Dissonance:
I’ve been interested in contemporary works that explore the use of research, which takes us outside our own individual points of view on the world. In creative works encompassing research, there’s a fundamental tension between one’s own perspectives and what we learn to see through other people.
Lines that Linger
In the amazing poem, “Lake Superior,” Lorine Niedecker condenses her 100+ pages of typed notes into a few dozen stanzas.
A few days ago, I read Kaveh Akbar’s “Love Poem with Tumor and Petrified Dog” and was delighted by how he incorporated “facts” about Pompeii into his poem.
I’d like to experiment with different ways to take my notes and research on the cultural and geological history of the gorge and put them into poems/creative writing. The wilder, stranger experiment, the better!
a few hours later: Rereading this last paragraph, I suddenly thought of Mathias Svalina’s Surreal Zillow tours, which I read about last November.
Here’s how the tours work (from my log entry, 18 nov 2024):
You show up at the appropriate time and place and look for a man with a bullhorn. “Because I’m a man who owns a bullhorn now,” Svalina says. “[Then] I’ll point to buildings and lie about them for 90 minutes.”
and part of its purpose:
“I’m particularly interested in civic history because of the ways that cities use, rewrite, and often weaponize their histories as promotional agents, or as ways of ignoring populations,” he explains. “So, I like the idea of inventing histories that could not have ever existed.”
I’m not interested in making up or twisting my research, but this popped into my head, and I wanted to remember it here.
soft vision
Just started listening to the novel, Havoc, which I’m really enjoying. The main character is an octogenarian living in a grand hotel during the pandemic in Cairo and causing chaos with her desire to “help” others. Early on, she describes the faded beauty of a grand hotel:
A bit of advice: if you fear mice, don’t peer too closely into the corners. I suggest walking around the hotel in a happy, glaucomal squint.
Havoc/ Christopher Bollen