has made some powerful and beautiful statements with her finely crafted Leonard Cohen icons. Now, I love me some Leonard, but in the special, oddly-shaped poetry chamber of my heart there’s only room for one creepy and ornately festooned shrine, covered in streamers and whips and taper candles and kilt pins and pinatas. And that shrine, my friends, belongs to Michael Ondaatje.

For some time now I have been debating how best to honour my beloved wordsmith with a worthy icon.
Of all his poetry, I love ‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ best …but that will take me some time to break down into something meaningful that will still fit into the very restricted 40k/100x100pixel limitations of the userpic format. I’d also like to try animating ‘Elimination Dance’ one day. I like the challenge – it’s sort of like visual haiku.

Anyhow, I’ve decided to tackle something a little easier, so I’m doing one of his shorter pieces:
I wanted poetry to be walnuts
in their green cases
but now it is the sea
and we let it drown us,
and we fly to it released
by giant catapults
of pain loneliness deceit and vanity

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far, but these are just ‘rough drafts’ if you will. Tell me what you think.