Sparks

How Photography Inspires Writing

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. How Photography Inspires My Writing By Simona Carini On January 18, 2016, walking around North Berkeley, I was brought to a halt by the look of a house: the right and left side were painted in different colors and the overall effect was that of a line bisecting the façade. I took a photo and resumed my walk but kept thinking about the house. At home, I wrote down what I had seen and the musings the sight had stirred, then distilled the material into my first poem “The Divorced House” which was published in the journal, Star 82 Review, together with the photo. At the time, I had been writing for almost 10 years, mostly about food and more recently memoir. Poetry was a new endeavor. As I developed my style and voice, I continued…

Sparks

Memory of a ‘giorno dei morti’ in Italy

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Memory of a ‘giorno dei morti’ in Italy by Simona Carini What I remember most about that day is the cold wind. It was blowing strongly, and yet it could not push away the heavy low clouds and wipe the sky clear, so it was dark in the early afternoon. The cypresses lining the gravel path from the cemetery’s heavy iron gate to the chapel swayed as if wailing unconsolably. A group of people had walked the narrow road from the village to the cemetery in a procession led by the priest, Don Gabriele, imposing in his black cassock, which swirled around his legs at the mercy of the biting wind. A child then, I was terrified not of the cemetery, which I had been visiting regularly with my father since an early age, but of…