Sheryl Crow Weather

Discovering new ways to look at the seasons

Hello, Wonder-Seekers!

We are 64% of the way to our Kickstarter goal for the haiku comics collection Conifers and the Cosmos! We still have 9 days to go. Thank you to everyone who has pledged. If you haven’t had a chance to pledge yet, make sure to pledge as soon as possible!

You can learn more about the project here.

Sheryl Crow Weather

A year or more ago, I began reading

Ann Collins

. She writes about microseasons. Most haiku poetry collections you find are organized according to season because season plays such a central role in the traditional Japanese form. Ann’s newsletter is not only a beautiful bit of wonder to my life, but it has also inspired me to rethink how I might organize my haiku poetry.

I have mostly eschewed the seasonal organizing principle in my work. However, for my next haiku comics collection, the one I’m currently running the Kickstarter for, I’m going to use my own system of microseasons for the different sections.

As a lifelong resident of the West Coast of the United States and someone who spent their teen years in California, mid-May until mid-June, when school gets out, is Sheryl Crow weather.

The sun is bright, the tyranny of winter gray is once more overthrown, and the capriciousness of early spring has mostly settled down. However, you still get a few showers producing a lovely petrichor and keeping the fierceness of late summer at bay for a few more weeks.

Crow’s first album, Tuesday Night Music Club, debuted in 1993, right as I was about to start my senior year of high school. Her hit song All I Wanna Do is typical of the kinds of songs that make me associate her music with the period when spring becomes summer, but almost all of her songs fit this vibe.

I also find this line from 1996’s A Change Would Do You Good to be a kind of mantra for when I’m tired of people:

Hello it's me, I'm not at home
If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone

Her newest album, Evolution, just came out at the end of March, and I find myself listening to it as I drive my kids around while I think about my book—about the only thing I can think about currently. I’m especially partial to Do It Again.

And while Conifers and Cosmos is still a work in progress, here are some of the haiku comics that I think will be in the Sheryl Crow Weather section of the book:

Thanks for reading!

Be the weird you want to see in the world!

Cheers,

Jason