COMING UP: MINDFUL WRITING WORKSHOP. I’m co-hosting a workshop on Haiku for the Turn of the Year with Marion Pernoux, a somatic arts therapist and Reiki master, on December 7 in San Francisco. Click here to learn more and register for our mindful haiku workshop.

This summer, my friend Janne-Pekka Manninen, a Finnish journalist and photographer, began a three-month artist’s residency in Berlin. He invited me to follow along with his process as a sort of satellite contributor. Neither of us really knew what this collaboration would mean, except that he was inviting me to respond to his photography with poetry or writing. I was excited for the opportunity to share, remotely and vicariously, in a bit of his residency experience. And I was curious to learn more about his creative process, because photography is not an art I’ve studied deeply.

JP startled me by first asking me to record a short guided meditation for him. He wanted something to listen to each day before going out to work, to help him focus and get in the right frame of mind. He’d had been a participant in one of the writing circles I’ve offered through Foster, a writing collective. In these circles, I usually kick off our one-hour writing sessions with a brief meditation or a mindful writing prompt. JP wanted that kind of experience for his residency, and I was delighted by the request. So I recorded a short, five-minute meditation for him, to help with grounding and tapping into a spirit of receptivity.

JP told me he appreciated this and that he listened to it nearly every morning. So later in the summer, I recorded a second guided meditation, more directly connected to the photographic experience and the project’s theme.

Hey Dylan! Thanks so much for the meditation file! It set me in the mood perfectly today. I ran into a guy at Tempelhof who was meditating in the evening sun and he allowed me to make his portrait when I asked. So it bore fruit instantly!

JP was organizing his residency project around the concept of transience and the phrase “Every Turn of the Sun,” referring to the way the Sun itself rotates every 27 days or so. He was shooting on film, so it took a little while for his first photos to appear. But in the meantime, he shared snapshots from his notebook with me, showing the kinds of things he was reading and thinking about. Later, as he got the film developed and scanned, he shared the photos in a Dropbox folder.

We also stayed in touch via WhatsApp, where I shared photos of tractors and barns from my trip back home to Ohio, he showed me pictures of Berlin and talked to me about Avedon and Mapplethorpe, and we both shared our love of Mary Oliver’s poetry.

Over the summer I followed along as his collection of raw photos grew and he started winnowing them down into a smaller, curated selection. Recurring motifs started to emerge: People standing in the sun, big trees with broken limbs, detritus strewn in the park. People embracing trees or plants. People closing their eyes and turning their faces to the sky.

As JP’s photo collection took shape, I started scribbling notes for poems. Some were a direct response to his photo or the theme of the Sun’s rotation. Haiku and tanka seemed particularly suitable to the theme of transience, so I wrote a handful of each of those. Since he’d shared unedited photos with me, I decided to do the same with my drafts, and shared photos of my notebook pages.

As JP entered the final weeks of his residency, he began preparing the gallery show that would be its culmination. This prompted me to edit and finalize my collection of poems, which I shared with him.

It was then that JP surprised me for a second time by asking if I would do a Listener Poet session for him. Of course I was delighted by this request: as a newly certified Listener Poet, I’m eager to share this practice with others. So we spent half an hour one morning talking about his approach to photography, and in particular one portrait session he’d done recently in Berlin. After that, I spent a couple of days letting my notes steep, and then I drafted a poem for him, “Portrait of the Photographer.” (see below)

JP’s show went well. The gallery space looked beautiful, and even though I couldn’t visit Berlin to attend, he shared a video walkthrough of the space. And that’s when he gave me a third surprise: At the end of his video, he zoomed in on a handout that the gallery curators had included as part of the show, including a few of my tanka and haiku.

I enjoyed collaborating with someone whose art form is so different from mine, and it was exciting to experiment with doing that in new ways: sharing meditations, exchanging very raw drafts and even notes, and exchanging snapshots of our daily lives. And it was a privilege to participate. Thanks, JP!

Check out Janne-Pekka Manninen’s show at SomoS Arts in Berlin, now through October 25!

Top photo by Janne-Pekka Manninen

“Portrait of the Photographer” — The Poem’s Origin Story

He’s a Finnish photographer nearing the end of a three-month residency in Berlin. He talks about his inspirations: Avedon, Mapplethorpe, random encounters in the streets and parks of the city that turn into impromptu photo sessions. He’s not just making pictures, focusing on the technical aspects: He’s trying to make a connection with the subject. “My personality is to talk a lot,” he says, “to break the ice. But I also know when to shut up.” Winning trust and entering into a synchronicity with his subjects takes a lot of energy, and even a 20-minute connection can be exhausting.

Recently, he did a portrait session in a gallery. The experience reminded him of Patti Smith’s book, Just Kids, in which she talks about her friendship with Mapplethorpe. The subject was nervous and antsy at first. But then she relaxed, and the rhythm shifted. “It became a collaboration — a co-creation,” he says. At the end, she seemed very happy, and told him that it had felt like a safe experience, giving her a chance to explore a previously hidden side of her personality in a new way.