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Caterpillar’s Song
Tag: nature
Dance Me Wilderness
Poetry in the Every Day
Tread lightly
walk in softness
Photographs whilst walking
become source of reflection
inspiration and care on
days when I can’t walk.
Thread lightly
memories only a few days old
This feather nestled in
the surrounds of the park
a moment of grace
saying ‘stop and be with me’
Today my heels are in a sorry state,
covered in antiseptic cream
band aids and slippers
and still I can hardly tread
on ground.
So this what the little mermaid
meant when she said
‘I walk in pain.’
I must be content with scrolling
through the beauty of my last walk in
nature
just down the street.
Move lightly
swim in softness
So near and yet so far.
This soft feather a solace.
Move lightly
become softness.
And mystery is a feather
discovering its poetry.
(c) June Perkins
Seaspray17: Ocean Photography & Haiku Poetry – Review
Seaspray 17: Ocean photography and Haiku Poetry, (2019) Poetry by Dannika Patterson and photography by Kian Bates. (Morningstar Books, Capalaba) ISBN 9780648577805, 38 pages, landscape, RRP $30.00
Looking for something to dive into this weekend, to just take your mind off the current state of the world, and imagine, transform and connect with nature, then Seaspray 17 may be just your thing. First, I want to share a little about its two creators, Dannika Patterson and Kian Bates.
Dannika Patterson, the poet is an author, copywriter and marketing consultant, who in the last few years has published five books for children with two of these celebrating a love of nature, outdoor play, and imagination, Jacaranda Magic (2018) and Scribbly Gum Secrets (2020).
In 2019, she collaborated to create a coffee table, photography and Haiku poetry book, Seaspray 17: Ocean photography with Haiku Poetry, with Kian Bates, a photographer from New South Wales with a passion for the ocean. Kian co-owns Raw Edge photography and takes workshops where he teaches others photography.
Seaspray 17 whilst still as suitable for children as other Patterson works, due to the playfulness and beauty of some of the images, and language, appeals more broadly to people of any age concerned with the passing of time and the protection of the environment. Photographs are commonly used for non-fiction works for children, but this is not a straightforward non-fiction book dealing with the ocean, but rather a series of artistic photographs capturing the imagination and artistry that is the ocean.
Haiku is an astute marketing choice, because it is commonly studied in school, however it is still a highly relevant choice because this ancient Japanese poetry form often features epiphanies for existence, time, and connection in nature and ensures that Patterson’s ongoing interest and love of nature is expressed in a form that is renowned and well suited to that purpose.
The overall approach of the book is more akin to Haiga, where image and text work together, although traditionally this would have been through ink and watercolour and in this work it is through artistic photography. This adds to the attractiveness of the collection, because the photographs and text elevate each other, and intertwine to make new meanings.
Four of the haiku that I particularly enjoy are ‘Mr Greenback,’ for its direct informal first creature address of the turtle to us the reader asking for us to change our ways for the turtle . . .
Copyright Raw Edge photography and Dannika Patterson, used with their permission
. . . ‘Mermaid Musings’ for its imaginative quality of the in-between spaces both physically, emotionally and spiritually and ‘With You’ and ‘Your Lead’ a dramatic double spread black and white of a mum and calf, accompanied by one haiku from the perspective of the mum, and the other the perspective of the calf. It is just stunning.
Copyright Raw Edge photography and Dannika Patterson, used with their permission
There are several haiku that play with the sense of time, and the capturing of a moment in time that will soon be gone. Of these my favourite would be ‘Roar’, where the photograph and words match beautifully and playfully. I’ll leave you a bit of mystery with this one, and encourage you to purchase the book to see why.
For language, the playfulness of ‘Dive Jive’ is pleasing to the ear.
Shake, rattle and roll
jiving, alive and thriving
rock on, reef, rock on
(The Dive Jive, by Dannika Patterson)
Bates’s photographic imagery, is often focused on the wave, as well as what is within it, which gives the book a universal applicability to anyone living by and interacting with the sea. Those familiar with Australia’s NSW coastlines might identify specific Australian coastal geography like in ‘Freeze Frame.’ Small titles to the photographs add another layer into the meaning the reader can take away. For example one poem, ‘Wild and Free’ the title of the image is ‘triceratops.’
Most of these poems work best alongside the images, as they use the economy of expression that a skilled writer for children is often adept at, leaving space to the image to communicate and expand upon the words. The works within Seaspray17 invite the reader to engage not only with the ocean and its creatures but time itself.
Bates and Patterson convey that the ocean needs to be more than a source of a muse, it’s something we can fiercely protect as a mother would a child, or a lion would its pride.
The imagery, photographic and verbal, is gentle, playful, fantastical and, full of light and quiet optimism that the reader will choose to become a guardian of nature.
**
Teacher’s notes are available for this book and many of the images as well as the book can be purchased from Raw Edge photography.
You can purchase from the Raw Edge Website
And also from Dannika Patterson’s site
Spirit of the Plains
Brolga! Brolga, follow me, dance with me across the plains,
for you are me, and I am you, if only though I had your wings.
Brolga! Brolga, bring your friends; I know you cannot live alone.
Listen, as I play for you, a wetland filling up with food.
Brolga! Brolga, I bless you; may your wetlands always be here.
Let them not be cleared away, let the sedge grow tall and well.
May the people hear our song, then dance with us across the plains.
Brolga! Brolga, I am you, and you are me: let us both grow tall and well.
By June Perkins, Brisbane based, poet and children’s author, This poem is part of Words and Pictures, Spring 2018
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Embrace the Australian Collection as a place of quiet contemplation through poetry, drop-in drawing and calm living meditation.
WORDS & PICTURES: DROP-IN DAILY
Ongoing | Galleries 10 – 13 | Free
Discover a fresh perspective on the Australian Collection with Words & Pictures, an ongoing project that invites local artists and writers to respond to artworks in the Australian Collection. Take inspiration, and use the pencils and paper provided to create your own response through drawing or writing.
SPRING 2018 | This season’s Words & Pictures inspiration comes from poet and children’s author, June Perkins. June has developed an interactive journey through the Australian Collection through poems and micro-stories for visitors of all ages, with particular appeal for children and families.
For more head to the Gallery or the webpage (other poems and stories at this site until November only)
Scribble Leaves
What does the writing
on the leaves
mean?
Who put it there?
Insect,
human or Great Spirit?
Wrap your arms
around
green life.
Wrap your arms
around
the source
of your breath.
Wrap yourself
into
the story
of the carving.
(c) June Perkins all rights reserved words and images
First posted on this blog in 2015
Cyclone Inspired Poetry 2
What Would Emily Say?
The creek is still here
skeleton bush returns bit by bit
but the swinging tree by the waterhole
is gone.
The tiny blue trimmed butterflies
hide with the dandelions
gold and brown ones nestle
deep into the green grass
capturing them with my camera
leaves them free
to fly.
Why do some children take red nets
and break wings of such beauty?
Why can’t they let them be?
Two friends at a round table
discussing Emily Dickinson
and how she had to speak to others
from another room.
She needed so much room
to write her words but
still she hid them away.
Butterflies hiding in the grass
sing of Emily and wonder
What would she have made of cyclones?
(c) Words and Images by June Perkins
Bird of the Heart and Illumine Exhibition
I am busy preparing for the ‘Illumine Exhibition with Ruha, Minaira and Temily. Just 4 weekends to go!
I’m not absolutely decided on which of my pieces are going in, but I enjoy the process of creating things and then working out how to present them.
I have been searching for the best specials and reasonable quality for printing and mounting, so that things attract the viewer but are not super expensive.
We are exhibiting at Magda Community Artz, which is not often used as an exhibition space, but is more regularly a performance space. To adapt the space we will be using easels as well as the walls, and finding safe places to hang things from, and may even make use of some of the outdoor space. This is making me think carefully about how to print and mount the photographs and what kind of materials to print them on. You can print on canvas, metal, fabric (cotton, silk), wood board, different kinds of paper and more. Each of these has a different quality.
I have been on big searches in pinterest to look for inspiration. One day I might even write a blog on it!
Another thing I have been looking at is how to present the poems. Will it be on posters with the images like the photograph on this post, or will they be simply written under the photograph on foam core? I might also read the poem under the image it goes with?
We’re having some performances of dance, music and poetry on opening night and charging a small door fee to help us cover the costs of the exhibition. If you are in Brisbane and able to attend you can book for our special opening night HERE
Sunburst
Sunburst through green
patterns like seventies wall paper
sing of Sounds of Silence –
in nature’s calls
things unseen,
the inner story of
glow worms and lyrebirds.
By June Perkins
Reminders
Light on walls
reminder of picnic at hanging rock
lost mystery
nature’s cathedral sings
epiphany
(c) June Perkins
Ripple Poetry 