Better Writing through Research

My latest project is a set of poems which take place in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. My research started online: reading observations and reflections, studying photographs, and analyzing maps.  But, knowing that nothing beats first-hand research, last Wednesday I spent the afternoon and evening in Wharton State Forest. I've included a few photos here. I have almost two dozen more that will serve as a kind of visual database from which I will draw as a write and revise.

Yet, photos don't record enough. I traveled to the Pines to make observations that I hadn't discovered in my reading. I wasn't sure I would be rewarded for my efforts, but I had to go--even just to feel the Pine Barrens sun on my face and the Pine Barrens wind on my arms. Luckily, I got more than that. The first thing I discovered was the flies. I had been to the Pine Barrens before, but not on a hot August day just after torrential rains. The flies overwhelmed me. Various breeds. They bit. They buzzed. At times they even swarmed. At the worst moments during the day, a swarm might surround me and squirm into my hair--short as it was--and my eyes, nose, the corners of my mouth, my ears. Mostly a few dozen or so would bite as I took pictures or walked around. Relief would come occasionally from a strong breeze. The flies took refuge in the ground covering, and for a few minutes we went about our separate business.

In the ruins of the town of Friendship, someone had decorated a big tree with a piece of art--a painted mirror. I hadn't expected that. The artist? KB. Ants crawled all over it. If no one removes it, the elements surely will.

Most relevant to the trip was perhaps one of my last observations. My traveling companion and I stayed past sunset, well into the dark. Very dark. Middle of the woods dark. He turned on a bright maglite I had brought, and the beam was choked with clouds of churning pollen. Invisible during the day, the pollen was clearly something we had been swimming in, breathing in. It occurred to me that people who spend years of their lives here are more apart of the Pines then we might realize.