The Weather is a living e-mail thread between artists Tyler Hoffart and Hanna Waters.
Are you lost? Catch up here: Part 1: Introducing the Weather, Part 2: March 24, Part 3: March 30, Part 4: April 7, Part 5: April 14, Part 6: April 21.
Three weeks ago we introduced the big fuckin’ inline, where Tyler and Hanna, in addition to responding to the most recent e-mail, also go back in and build on each other’s work with inline responses. This will be the last week of the inline, or the inline in this current iteration. We will never really be done with the inline. The inline doesn’t stop, it just takes a different form. This isn’t the right form. Anyway, like usual, it’s the response, followed by the inline.
Hanna Waters <hannamwaters@gmail.com>
Tue, Apr 9, 9:42 PM
to Tyler
Me looking at this inline monstrosity like girl how the HELL are you going to display this on freakin' Substack. This becomes more complicated as I cannot change font colors within a post on Substack - hahahahHAHAHAHahahahaHAHAh - I was just poring over a few Reddit and Substack help threads and you can't even code it in right now. Not that I can code, but I did have a sick-ass Myspace at one point and somehow, we all knew a little HTML.
This last weekend when I debuted the inline, I bolded your responses. Next week? Geez I'm not sure. Strikethrough? Underline? What have I done. What have we DONE.
Okay, I'm thinking we must pivot with this inline thing. Unless you have any crazzzzzzzy ideas up your sleeves or in your boot. But um, maybe we do that... next time. Or maybe this will be the last of responses on this inline, and then we could just restart an inline every so often so I can post it so it's somewhat almost not really hardly legible. Yeah so uh, let me know... what you think... but I'mma go back into these inlines 8) and dig ourselves a deeper hole. I love digging holes! I love the dirt! I love making creative problems because they're not that serious and we can do whatever the fuck we want *clicks the three dots* POIPLE!! [ed note: Hanna’s inline notes strikethrough; Tyler’s in bold]
**Okay, I just got done making my inline responses and I got so lost trying to find this draft. I will write more soon, but just needed to respond at this point. Send me something you're working on.
-HW
[INLINE] On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 4:54 PM Tyler Hoffart <tylerstevenhoffart@gmail.com> wrote:
BLUE [ed note: Hanna’s inline notes
strikethrough; Tyler’s in bold]On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 1:19 PM Hanna Waters <hannamwaters@gmail.com> wrote:
Tyler,
I love a good inline response. Find my comments below in PURPLE
[ed note: strikethrough]. Together, we'll build some horribly beautiful frankensteined inline marked-up cluster fuck abomination about all of the holiest moments. It will be good and we can print it out and hang it on the wall and laugh and invite viewers to add to it and then maybe we'll meet God or something. You never know.this entire paragraph is fucking gold.
Together
we'll build some horribly
beautiful
frankensteined inline mark-up
a real cluster fuck abomination about all of the holiest moments.
maybe we'll meet God or something
you never know
Damn it smells like INLINE gold up in here. This is so fun. We're building poems, we're tearing them down.
I may have seen that piece somewhere on IG but otherwise, it is fresh to me. It is most excellent. Do tell about the book? i have a rough draft for a book of poems: When The Moon Was Home. A companion piece to our last year and show. A curated list of mostly my poems from the past 5-7 years or so. A few from Marah. The plan was/is to have our friend Matthew illustrate the piece with his incredible work. He's done a few illustrations and they are amazing. But it's on the backburner i have too many things. But it will happen in some form. I simply havent' even been able to think about it because i'm been pushing so hard otherwise. I just need to pick it back up and this is helping me consider that. Unless it's hush-hush. Then you can whisper it on the wind and el nino might see it fit to bring it my way on the 'ol jet stream.
It will happen when it needs to happen and we will all read it and be better for it!! The great thing about these projects of the heart is they're always waiting for us when we return. They greet us.
I have a few poems that have approached a Place of No Return. Your last bit about the Big Blood song and your "I am fucking obsessed and burnt out and dying and alive and oh my god I'm alive" made me think of this one poem that's sat like a stone in the recesses of my Notes app. Because it was meant to be about how fucking hard and nasty life can be but also how it's just so beautiful and all of the woe of the world can be lifted momentarily by the perfection of small, fleeting moments. I love how hard this life is. I love that it takes everything I have. It should. I should have nothing left to carry when I exit except a big-ass smile and a sense of humor.
this above paragraph is the fucking poem dude. HOT DAMN SALLY
sooooo.........
Big Blood
Your last bit about big blood
and how you're fucking
obsessed and burnt out and
dying and alive
and oh my god you're alive
made me think of this one poem
that's sat like a stone
in the recesses of my Notes app
Because it was meant to be
about how fucking hard and nasty life can be but also
how it's just so beautiful
and all of the woe of the world can be lifted
momentarily by the perfection
of small, fleeting moments.
I love how hard this life is.
I love that it takes everything I have.
It should.
I should have nothing left to carry
when I exit except a big-ass smile
and a sense
of humor.I shared it with someone and they were like oh, no. That doesn't make sense. This is the worst critique that could ever be given and i hope you did not let them live (aka fuck them) ((sorry if you still love them)) That's not something I would post. That's sum bullshit but, wanna help me with it? Wanna workshop in real-time?
-
It’s hard.
It’s arriving as helpless as you leave,
all wide-eyed,
screaming and sipping virgin breaths
or silent and deflating like bellows
well worn.It’s hard.
Some have shiny toolkits, soft pillows.
Some are beaten and buried.
Rare is a roadmap. I know—
I patted my breast pocket one thousand times:
it’s never there.It’s hard.
Everyone you love is dying. Some are already dead.
There are drugs and rivers and leaky hearts.
You feel too young to be dressed for mourning.
I don’t know who I am, you think, and the sky blisters overhead.It’s hard.
But isn’t it strange? How a monarch can sway into the frame
And the hard softens with the silent beating of wings
How a star can fall and you can catch it if you’re careful,
If you don’t blink.
How a sky can erupt crimson and pink,
Fade violet and umber before your open eyes.
How a hand can reach down into the blackness
Grab yours, tug upwards...
And isn’t all good and beautiful?
Sometimes I hold it so tightly that it jerks and slumps slack.
I clench my teeth and they nearly explode
before widening into a smile and
I laugh and laugh and oh my God,
isn’t everything good and beautiful?-
I dunno, what do you think? Feels pretty hot damn pretty ass lifey to me. Maybe it's top-heavy.
Critique: please take absolutely everything i say with a house-sized boulder of salt. I will not think too long abou it, i will just react and respond with honesty and instinct. I think everything else is mostly a waste of time.
While it has some sort of laser beam inside of it, maybe this piece just isn't you anymore? The voice that you are dipping into right now in this glorious and fruitful spring is THE VOICE that shakes. Magic. You have magic. The above piece does not feel like your magic. I"m not sure why. I think it's trying too hard (i do this CONSTANTLY). Maybe you need to murder it in some way and then pick up the pieces with SPRINGTIME HANNA. Try again. Dont' work on this one, put the work into a new version. Then compare? I DONT KNOW I"M THROWING SHIT AT WALLS AND WHAT IF IT STICKS
Oh dude, I was so glad to read this. Thank you. I have been eager for critique and yeah I wasn't sure that this was me or relevant anymore and it has some decent bits but it's nice to just be done with it. I agree. I'm in a different place now and it's definitely trying too hard and I just don't need it. I appreciate the honesty and kind words and yes, my voice becoming clearer even to me and I'm listening to it and it's often generous. I don't need to do anything to the poem except leave it where I found it. In the recesses of my notes app.
On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 10:47 AM Tyler Hoffart <tylerstevenhoffart@gmail.com> wrote:
I have some thoughts below in your text in BLUE
Here's a list i wrote a while back (it's on my insta somewhere maybe you already seen it) and that I'm currently working on to be included in a potential book:
when your puppy pisses outside for the first time
when you meet a stranger who also knows your serpent by her first name.
when a tiny piece of light moves in an animal way.Yeah this forever. I was watching tiny worms of light shiver along my wall this morning.
when you take a chance and fail terrifically and realize everyone knows exactly what you mean when you don’t say anything at all but you have that look on your face that they see and they go oh-boy-oh-shit-oh-my-god-she’s-gunna-fucking-do-it.
when a dog curls next to you and there is no other curl in the world.
when the sun comes back, says whoa motherfucker take it easy, dont worry, hold on, I exist.
when you see the full moon at dusk and no matter how much you read and understand and guess at the math there is still a feeling you will never put into words.
the ineffable always gonna ineff, huh? I looked through my blinds last night at the waxing moon and went all dumb and doe-eyed.when you remember to breathe and feel your body.
when nothing needs to be said but somehow you’re saying everything you’d ever have to say because someone really sees you, hears you, feels you, imagines you, stands with you.
when a thunderstorm begins on the prairie and you see from one end to the other.watching a storm move over the land - the inevitability, the growing power
when you finally get to pee after staying until the end.
when he picks you up, starts running, gives no impression of ever stopping.
when she puts you in a head lock.
when knowing comes through feeling.
when they have waffle fries on the menu.
when someone finally says spring is coming and looks you dead ass in the eye and you both know they’re actually fucking right thank sweet baby jesus in drag.
when the time comes.when you just know. when you just know, when it is revealed to you, when the wind lays down and drops the body. when I do the same.
when you’re truly here
then,
gone.ALSO some noobies:
the feeling i can almost get to when my catahoulas howl (a few times a day). they get right beside each other and unleash some kind of emotion that puts static in my beard. it's obvious that it is so important to their being and so i jump on in, cuz they are my babies, and i howl with them and we pull the world's heart into my bedroom. we sing for the sky. we burn for core of the moon. i'm pretty sure they understand something so thoroughly and completely with that howl. the sound of everything.
laughing at our chickens. each one is different. Inga, Agnes, Jono, Arvo, Big Bean, Lil Bean, Eunice, Eunice, Eunice. Eunice is my dead grandma who i never really liked and was mostly scared of and now she's back to fuck with me times three. Honestly she was a bit (lot) of a bitch. And yes, the Eunices are bitches. But god damn are they pretty. Don't worry my other grandma Anita is my soulmate and fuck i need to call her.
the motherfucking sun. thank sweet baby jesus in drag (again)
Somewhat related to your catahoulas howling - I live hood-adjacent. It's cool and fine. There's a pretty rampant stray/feral/abandoned animal problem here, so we've gotwild packs of family dogs(great song) running thru the yard daily, literally. When a siren sounds - like a fire truck, and cop car - all of the hood dogs howl in unison. It's kind of terrifying; sounds like a choir of ghosts in harmony. Up and down they trill with the siren and then it fades. I've come to really enjoy it.
This is fucking glorious. wild packs of family dogs is one of my favest songs evrrrr
And another - when you're covered in outside. My favorite feeling in the world is when I've been out in the sun all day baking and swimming in the lake. My hair is dirty and looks great and my skin is all sun-warm like a stone and I'm a little feral. I could walk into the water and never resurface. I could let the sun cook me. I'd do anything for a blue sky, a soft breeze, and the smell of outside on my skin.
stop dont' stop you're writing like a writing writer of poetry. keep going little feral. let the sun cook you to just about right. it's so nice to get our colors right
you're making me smell the dirt on my hands. dirt and chalk and a soft rope burn after a full day of climbing. dirt so black under my nails after a full day of planting. of pulling weeds. the god damn smell itself is a lover. i could live another life there, the smell beside me, tucked in and close and just right. me and the smell would pack our bags and fly away to spain. or thailand. our last dime spent on adventure.
dang this is so good friend, your words are super sharp and your seeing eye clear. These little experiences are the jewels of life. They are the riches. The smells, the sights. The small pleasures. The first shy blooms of spring on a walk. The warm car. The small kindnesses. The smell of a coming storm. The god damn smell itself is a lover - what a line, man. So beautiful. The woods are heavily perfumed right now with the scent of blooming trees, it's gorgeous and delightful and often stops me in my tracks. I, too, want to bottle it up and keep it forever and go to Thailand with it.
DUDE HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO HANDLE THESE INLINE RESPONSES THO FO REAL
I have no idea how to handle these inlines. We're going to have to do something about these inlines but I decided to inline justa one more time. For the road. For the homies. I feel like I'm hearing more and more of my voice and its potential and I just need to continue to follow it but I also need to devote more time to it. Just time for free writing, daydreaming.
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