brainstorming for "talked with by fire" title page

It has taken a lot longer to get this out to you than I had previously anticipated, but today I present you with the proposed title page image for To Some I Have Talked with by the Fire. The first initial I drafted up back in November was centered around a flock of birds(presumably they will be ravens, but at the moment they are a nice generic animal of the avian variety.) That initial turned out so well that it was decided to carry that theme over into the title page. This title page breaks the continuity of figure centered imagery which has been used for all the other poems to date. However, between the up sweeping flames, the rising bird, and the smoke swirls, I feel that the visual plane is being used roughly in the same manner of that in previous images. Therefore, I do not believe that the lack of a human figure in this image will be a problem.

Elements:
fire and raven - And of the embattled flaming multitude/ who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame
bats - Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees
knife/dagger/etc - and with the clashing of their sword-blades make/ a rapturous music, will the morning break

As you can see in the image above I am playing with the idea of writing the poem's title in the smoke, however, I'm not certain how this will work. Unless I can find a way to work the titles into all the title page images themselves, then I will not be doing that.

My apologies that this is so short, but there will be more to come next Monday or later in the weekend.

iconography alert - "the song of wandering aengus"

While doing some research tonight for "To Some I Have Talked with by the Fire," I discovered that any reference to apple blossoms (in the hair of the "glimmering girl" from Wandering Aengus) should not be tied with alchemy. According to W.B. Yeats: Metaphysician as Dramatist by Heather C. Martin (1987, pg 75) apple blossoms from Aengus' (of the Tuatha Dé Danaan) "island of the young" (Tir na Nog ?) induce dreams of forgetfulness. These dreams of forgetfulness are appropriately referred to as Danaan dreams. I'm glad I stumbled across this because while it is clear that the apple trees are no stretch, any alchemical connection I mentally made with the apple blossoms just seemed somewhat contrived. Does the girl wearing these blossoms in her hair signify that the author wants to forget about her later in life, that he won't forget about her, or that the girl would have been forgotten by all others b/c she disappears in mist as if she had never existed? I will have to dwell on this for a bit.

brainstorming for "to some i have talked with by the fire" first initial

A proposed idea for the first initial and an image of the whole page that shows some notes I made post-drawing, in order to form some mental connections. The box in the top right corner lists words from this poem, that I had seen in at least one other poem that will be in the project.