Jon's Website

This page is a small collection of interesting bits of the world that I've found that have moved me in some way or another. I suppose it's a sort of experiment in visual poetry.

Contents

• An Ethiopian child, 1995 0426
• A letter from my Great Grandmother, 1995 0803
• The blackout, 2003 0814
• more to come as I find them!

1995 0426

Merafe Alemayehu, born 5/12/1993 in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. A child my family was going to sponsor through The Christian Children's Fund, though we ended up not sponsoring him for long.

I actually hate pictures like this when I see them in magazines and promotional literature for organizations like Compassion International, because there's not really much I feel like I can *do* for 'em. It's a very small, helpless feeling, staring at these random samplings of the millions of people who drift through this world and may or may not ever really come to much. I think that's why I put his picture up here though, rather than just throwing it away. One name and face might be remembered for a little while longer, now, even if I don't know all that much more about him or what's happened to him since this picture was taken in early 1995.

1995 0803

If you've been to the poetry section, you can probably guess why this discovery was so happy for me.

I've always written poetry, but never really used to take it very seriously. I love my relatives, but am horrible at keeping up a correspondance. Somehow, though, in 8th grade or so I managed to send a letter or two to my great-grandmother (whom we always called "Nana") with some silly poetry I'd written for the school newspaper enclosed. This card was the reply.

Now, I've been getting more and more into writing my own poetry recently, and have been taking it, and the contemplative sort of approach to life that comes along with it, quite seriously. So when I came across this letter in November or December of 2002, I thought it was really cool to see that there was some sort of family presedence for doggerel. (:

I tried to keep these scans as high-quality as I could while also making them small enough for web use. Uber-high resolution, uncompressed images are also available for the asking, though I'm not altogether sure why anyone would be interested.

2003 0814

Before

After

I think this one explains itself pretty well. Or rather, evokes enough different emotions that it's difficult to explain. But isn't it cool?!?