You may know that in addition to my poetry I also do art, posted on my blog Claudia McGill and Her Art World. For the next several months I will be posting here a combined art/poetry project, Large Artist Sketchbook 2020.
I fill up sketchbooks with all kinds of art. Some contain images only and some of them I use the images as inspiration for poetry. In these books the image is on one page of the spread and the poetry on the other. This book is set up in this manner.
I’ll show you the image and then add the poem that goes with it. See what you think.
Inheritance
This little house
side-scraped by wire-branch trees
balances on a boulder pile
hanging high above purple lines of seawater
listens to the waves slosh around the basin
it sits on the edge of
a circle three thousand or more
east west miles and edged by ruined cliff
Staked into place by the
infinite lines beginning at the center
and radiating out to end up here
whose name no one knows
and
it doesn’t matter anyway because
Nobody comes here
ever
except for the cool blue night sun
that every evening
sits down in the sky to keep watch
arranging a yellow-green cloud
over the house
like a warm blanket
and you. It’s for you
and you say:
Oh this little house is
exactly
what I need.
Thank you.
4/23/20
Large Artist Sketchbook 2020 image 23
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I absolutely love this illustration! Both the poem and the artwork make me think of very specific places and experiences. I grew up on a peninsula and visited historic fishing villages frequently as a result and this poem and the image make me think of all those little buildings that are stoic and endure despite being battered by all kinds of weather.
I always wanted to live in a small house by the ocean, and preferably on a rocky cliff or shore like this one. I think I depict this scene over and over. Because to me it represents safety. Who knows where I got this idea, but I have had it all my life.