Tuesday Poem - At Home In Antarctica

It's that time of the year again - August/September marks the beginning of the summer research season in Antarctica. The annual migration has started. Originally 'destined' to accompany my old team of scientists and ice divers down to New Harbor field camp this coming season, I will not in fact be going South this year. I will be staying home instead - and it feels right so. The resonances from previous seasons will endure for a lifetime. Besides, I can't help feeling increasingly conflicted by our presence in Antarctica. . . (Would I stand by that statement had I never been there? Or if circumstances were different this year? All things considered, yes, I believe I would.) 

It's no secret that I was one of those who fell in love with the white continent the moment I set eyes on her. I still feel an ache of homesickness for her from time to time. There are places skin, eyes and heart cannot un-remember.  

Where there is ice, there is music iv - Pastel on paper - CB 2009

AT HOME IN ANTARCTICA

In this place, silence has a voice

wide-ranging as the continent.

Some say it’s on the cusp

of madness, the way it hums

and stutters, mutters to itself

in quietest tones.

                       

In this place, nostalgia

roams, patient as slow hands

on skin, transparent

as melt-water. Nights are light

and long. Shadows settle

on the shoulders of air.

In this place, the universe

brims. Inside absence, 

presence. Inside distance, 

dust and our sleeping earth 

dreaming beneath her thin blue

mask of ice.

Time steps out of line

here, stops to thaw

the frozen hearts of icebergs.

Sleep isn’t always easy in this place

where the sun stays up all night

                                and silence has a voice.


                               CB

Tracking I - Ink, pencil & oil on a gessoed ply crate lid - CB 2006

For more Tuesday Poems please click on the quill. 

My turn to be editor on the TP hub this week. . . 
I have chosen Miner's Cook by fellow NZ artist and poet Meliors Simms. 

Tuesday Poem - Still Life With Zinc Bucket

STILL LIFE WITH ZINC BUCKET

Conversation winds around review articles

the contradictions that intimacy and objectivity

cannot help but provoke from inside 
this full-frontal still life. Talk curves 
common objects, a shard of buried porcelain, 
the way a bent garden fork with misshapen clods 

of earth states its attachment to the sun.

He assembles and re-assembles

scattered pieces of nature’s detritus

a torn bird’s wing (feather stirring

with striking yellow stripe, the stilled thread 

of flight). There are hints at life’s other

layers, the masked existence of geological rhythms 

in even the plainest of things. But look, 

the space in the picture is collapsing, yet 

he stubbornly provides no anchor of table 

or solid ground, no convenient mountain backdrop. 

Instead he sets the thinnest wash 
of silver-grey floating across dampened paper.

In the end, it is the warped simplicity

of a single zinc bucket that makes me 

leave the room to slake my thirst. 

CB

For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill. 

This week's editor is Sarah Jane Barnett. Sarah has posted a TED video of John. G. Rives giving an electrifying performance of his poem Rives Controls The Internet. 

Today has been

delightfully bizzurd |bizˈherd|adjective    strange or unusual, esp. so as to cause interest, incredulity or amusement; wildly unreasonable, illogical, unpredictable or inappropriate;  arousing amusement; calling forth expressions of the bizarre, ridiculous or absurd 
shaped a little like these

and these 

What shape has your day been? 

(is anybody out there?)

Dazzle

Tuesday Poem - Folding the World

In March this year, my youngest son, Tomas, (twenty-one-going-on-six-hundred-and-seventeen) left New Zealand to seek his fortune on the other side of the world. He has just returned to the UK after a three-week adventure in Morocco - an adventure his whanau back home are looking forward to hearing about! Tomas is easily the most self-contained person I know - a quality I admire and celebrate - and (yes, 'and' not 'but') one I very occasionally lament; he's, shall we say, unconventional when it comes to staying in touch - an opportunity for some us to practice patience? In time Tomas will regale us with his stories; his way is to fully inhabit the present moment, to dwell in the vivid details of a place or experience, absorbing the subtler textures of it all so that when he comes to write about it further down the track, everything's 'right there' as if it just happened. His letters, when they come, are well worth waiting for.

(As an aside. . . have you noticed how when we live in time, we worry less about all manner of things - and that living in time, we are generally on time?) 

When we was a very small boy, Tomas developed a passion for All Things Egypt and - a year or two after that - for paper and paper-construction. He tended to take to things on an all-or-nothing basis, which basically meant there was no stopping him if he was engaged and no starting him if he wasn't! Paper-folding pushed his 'on' button. Over many months of intense engagement, he developed methods that were exacting and delicate; sometimes his creations were closer to engineering than origami. I loved - loved - watching his complex constructions taking shape. He'd spend hours measuring, tearing, folding, unfolding, glueing, reinforcing, adding bits, removing others, building, dismantling, rebuilding. . . such patience! The addition of wire, balsa wood, batteries and small motors allowed him to animate them and take his ideas in fanciful directions. For him, construction, function and process were what it was all about - he seldom, if ever, spent time decorating or embellishing the things he made.  He'd make them, get them to work then move on to the next project. We shared our space with a cast of eclectic, eccentric things. 

Anyway, this is a very long introduction to this week's Tuesday Poem! Tender memories have a way of taking us on unexpected detours. . .   

         FOLDING THE WORLD

            for Tomas, aged six

            My boy is captive to paper, mesmerized

            by the crisp wafer crackle and bright

            wrapper wrinkle of his tissue paper

            playground; abandoned old telephone

            books, corrugated cardboard fortresses, 

            towering newspaper pyramids.

            He wraps, creases, folds his world.

            His bedroom walls are busy sky

            grazed by paper darts. A hundred planes

            fly head-to-tail in a steady clockwise

            stream; West to East they score

            lines of latitude behind blue

            unblinking eyes.

                                                          

           Seams in our old yellow wallpaper

           are time-keepers marking strict, straight

           lines of longitude. He crosses one, two

           three time zones in a single journey

           around the room - no instruments

           required to fly his tri-planes, bi-planes,

           classic and boxoid gliders, parrots,

           hawks, level-track deltas, fighter jets

           and - every now and then - an airborne

           origami elephant.

                   Tomorrow - perhaps - he will fold

                   winged sycamore seeds, construct a camel,

                   design a paper boomerang.

        

           Tonight he will crumple in sleep, dream

           of Tutankhamun and a flimsy shrine

           of gold leaf and turquoise.

           He will wake with the desert wind

           on his breath, whisper tales of Osiris,

           Isis, papyrus and dates. He does not falter

           in his fondness for scarabs nor question

           his small boy's thirst for the deep wet

           fragrance of pomegranates.

           CB 1998/2011

For this week's Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill. 

In recognition of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 this week, TP curator Mary McCallum has posted a film on the hub; listen to New Jersey poet Deborah Garrison reading four poems she wrote in response to this life-altering event. 

May Peace Prevail 

Deep Educational Responses - Ten Years On

We have all been reflecting on 9/11 - the event that ten years ago brought us and our global community to our knees in profound, painful and heart-opening ways. Two essays that especially moved me are these - - -

(1) A piece titled Formulating a Deep Educational Response to Tragedy: Reflections on the Eve of 9-11, by Tony Jenkins, Director of Education at the National Peace Academy.

Jenkins writes ". . . 'Our quickest responses are those that use the least of our imagination and are framed in unquestioned and familiar ways of looking at the world. Human tragedy and suffering will always be shocking, but the increasing frequency with which these violent events occur is evidence that our responses have not gone deep enough.'

Articulating further what I mean by a "deep" response is where I return today in my reflections about 9-11.   "Going deep" is a provocative metaphor.  In ecological terms we talk about digging deep below the surface to reveal the roots.  While we may see and appreciate a tree from the trunk up, we know that it cannot survive without the root system that delivers water and nutrients to each leaf and branch. Belief, cultural, political and institutional systems operate similarly: there are often ideas, principles and values at the core of these systems that are poorly examined and invisible to the naked eye. 

Facilitating learning that capacitates citizens to see and feel deep below and inside is one of the roles education can play in responding to tragedy.  Providing opportunities that engage learners in processes of reflection, relating, re-conceptualizing, futures thinking, and rebuilding should be at the heart of that deep response.  While not exhaustive, these processes are the building blocks of a transformative educational response to tragedy. . . " 

You can read the full article here - http://myemail.constantcontact.com/NPA-Remembers-9-11.html?soid=110...

The second piece is a challenging and deeply reflective essay written by Timothy Cahill, Director for the Center for Documentary Arts at the Sage Colleges (Troy & Albany campuses) in Upstate New York. Timothy writes ". . . after the cruel destruction of that day and the bloodshed and destruction that followed, the one incontrovertible truth it has demonstrated is that aggression never works. Not in the long run. It will not affect the change you imagine and cannot set you free. Aggression is slavery, and if we are not to destroy ourselves as a race we must, must, must reject it. We must rise above our baser instincts to fight and accept our human capacity to cooperate, to collaborate, to experience empathy and feel compassion. Love—only love—is the hope at the bottom of Pandora's box. . . " 

This link will take you to the full entry on Timothy's blog, Art & Document. 

It is good to gather around the table with you again. Soon I'll be ready to return to more regular blogging. . .  things are starting to pick up again in the studio, though more in the way of quiet and steady industry than wild flurries of activity - which feels good. 

Blessings all -

A Word

          A WORD

             This is the first year of the sea

             between us. We are islands apart

             but tuned to the same taut string. 

             I can feel the fear in his quaking

             texts. 1) Christch is gon. Lideas lost

             2) in littelton its all skwshd

             3) wot hapns now 

             Between us the land widens, gulps

             and fractures. The night falls deep.

             4) i just thnk wot if all of a sudn

     i had nuthng

             You would have yourself.

             5) is it enuff

             You would have a lifetime of love.

             It's the only word I can offer, 

             it's the one he knows best. 

             Jenny Powell

             Dunedin 2011

Thank you, thank you to my poet friend Jenny for answering 'yes' in response to my request to post A Word here. This poem - written for her son, Wyeth - rattled my chest and shook my heart open when I read it this afternoon and did so precisely as and when I needed it. To echo Marylinn in her post from earlier today, there are angels everywhere; Jenny? Wyeth? Marylinn? Yes, yes and yes again. In her colourful homage - an 'honoring collage' -  to a dear friend, Marylinn writes ". . . Look not askance at whatever crosses your line of sight today. Be attuned to the most hushed and coded whisperings of the unseen. Embrace what may seem unlikely and pay attention. . . "  I appreciate the reminder. 

_/\_

A Word first appeared in the September edition of The Dyslexia Foundation's monthly journal. 

Jenny’s latest collection maps the country, people and places of Viet Nam. It forms a cultural and literary bridge between the country Viet Nam and the visit to New Zealand of a Vietnamese music teacher Hao, who lived with Jenny during his stay in New Zealand. “Is it possible to love a country you have never been to? Is it possible to visit a country in your imagination?” she asks in the introduction to Viet Nam: A Poem Journey. Viet Nam is an evocative, colourful and imaginative journey that confirms in her work the power of the imaginal world. Read more here. 

Alluring Aprons

Dear friends


I'm thinking of taking a break from blogging for a while; I'm not sure for how long - a day, a week, a month or more? Neither do I want to put anything (de)finite around this intention. This past year has been a series of. . . how shall I put this. . . paradoxical, vivid and can-all-this-really-be-happening? experiences. Time has stretched into peculiar shapes calling for daily spontaneity and moment-by-moment responses. I've not been able to write any of it out here.  For all its surreality and heartache, Life has also been miraculous, heart-opening, instructive, fortifying, faith-building and so much more. I appreciate the image of the willow tree standing deeply-anchored with its roots in water while the rest of its body dips and flexes, responsive to any and all elements and weather. Seems we are being given one opportunity after another to practice our moves, to refine our dance with ourselves, each other, life.

I'll be working longish hours in the studio these coming few months, absorbed in a rather different and quietly thrilling project; one that's been incubating for some years and that seems to be gently insisting now is the time. . . I'll document the process, of course, but am reluctant to disclose the finished series until brows have been mopped and crinkles smoothed out (both of which could take a while!). Meantime, I'm looking forward to visiting you and your blogs and anticipate finding my voice again in conversation with you on your sites. 

Thank you for your company out here. I value you all heaps. 

Till soon then. . . Salani kahle; stay well. 

Return - Charcoal & pastel on paper - CB

Temple in the mist

A few pics from my weekend retreat on Banks Peninsula. . . 

Tuesday Poem - BUTTON SHOP

BUTTON SHOP

Via Cappellari, Rome

There is no front door; the way in is through

a gash in the old man's chest. Behind his ribcage

centuries-old buttons regulate the beating

of his heart. His chambers are bordered

by pleated velvet, the arch of his aorta embellished

with medallions carved in ivory and horn.

His ventricles are red-ruched satin, stitched

by hand, reinforced with the bleached baleens

of whales. You have only to press your ears

to the walls of his chest to overhear murmurs

of treason, bear witness to acts of love

and betrayal in the eighteenth-century court

of Versailles. His floating rib transmits

the sound of insects colliding with candle light,

street lamps and crystal chandeliers. Stand close

to detect the whirr of industry - in his blood vessels

the heat and light of theatre sets

and behind-the-scenes machinery.

He is centuries old. His superior vena cava echoes

with the metal of wartime trenches

empty cartridges, abandoned ammunition belts

and lost belt buckles: there, too, the crack

and split of a sailing ship crushed

in the fist of a storm.

There is no front door;

the way in is through the gash

in the old man's chest. His body

is an apology of dull grey scaffolding

but his heart? His heart remains

a patient, all-weather place.

CB 2007

For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill. This week's editor is Alicia Ponder with the poem Shetland Ponies, Haast Beach by fellow TP poet, Tim Jones

Today's Button Shop is a re-post. This poem was originally published in 2007 in my first collection, Open Book - Poetry & Images. In my last post, I mentioned I'd be away from home for a few days - first for an exhibition opening and then for a retreat on magnificent Banks Peninsula. Our small country has been brought to a virtual standstill after days of (for us) heavy snowfalls. Much of both islands is under a blanket of white - very beautiful, if somewhat disruptive! I was lucky enough to make it over the hills and back to Christchurch before the AA closed the roads. And now that I'm here, I'm fortunate to be able to stay with dear friends in their warm home. We are off into the snow now (going to the gallery space ; )). . . I'll post a few pics of the temple and Christchurch's white environs later today. . . Meantime, this is where I/we were this time last year. . . 

Salt water lions

17 August 2010

New from the studio

Hi. I'm writing this from Christchurch. I flew up last night in order to attend the opening (at 5.30PM this evening) of En Masse, the first in a series of 'pop-up' exhibitions staged by my long-time dealer gallery The Arthouse. En Masse includes work by sixteen artists and is the first 'in-the-flesh' show Norma and Peter have staged since having to evacuate their beautiful space in the CBD after the February 22 earthquake. 

Below are two works I completed for this exhibition - Murmur and I meant it to be a poem about sparrows and the silence that followed. . .  

Murmur - Charcoal & pastel on paper 2011 

I'm immersed in a sequence of drawings and paintings at the moment that are an attempt to address the profound and progressive wounding we have inflicted - and continue to inflict - on our earth, and to give voice to the urgency of our engagement and of our doing what we can to facilitate her preservation and healing. When it comes to matters of protest, my intention is always to find a way 'through the gaps', to communicate in language that evokes rather than provokes. I want very much to make work that acknowledges current realities in all their darkness and starkness and at the same time focusses in on beauty and wonder, mystery, poetry and lyricism. I hope to pose questions and to peel back the 'layers of the obvious' revealing the subtler notes that suggest there's a 'world of more' breathing below the surface of everything we know and that resides beyond what we can see and/or understand. (This may in part explain the appearance of X-ray-type imagery in this new work?)

There's a synchronistic little story behind the second image I'm posting here. This drawing was already well underway when I came upon The Sparrows, a poem posted by Christchurch-based writer, Helen Lowe. Helen had posted The Sparrows as her Tuesday Poem; this poem is one in a series she refers to as her Earthquake Witness sequence. The opening and closing lines of The Sparrows resonated particularly powerfully for me and seemed to be speaking directly into/out of the drawing I was engaged with. I asked Helen if I could 'borrow' the opening two lines as a title and possibly also include the poem with my finished piece on this exhibition. She generously agreed - and it will be great to see her at the opening a few hours from now. . .  

I meant it to be a poem about sparrows and the silence that followed. . . 

Charcoal, pastel & watercolour pencil on paper - 2011

Following the 22 February earthquake in Christchurch, the birds fled the city, rendering the broken landscape all the starker through the absence of birdsong. . The closing lines of Helen's poem read -

  

". . . And then, finally, they came / their wings clouding the sun."

*

It would be wonderful to see Christchurch blogging friends at the opening. . . This is late notice, I know, but please do come if you can? Activities get under way at 5.30PM this evening. Where? Upstairs in the NZ Health Food Co. building, 215 Wooldridge Road, Harewood. For friends further afield, I invite you to browse the work online by visiting Norma & Peter's virtual gallery (web technology is amazing, really - you can 'walk' around the space, zoom into images and see the mark-making with absolute clarity, swirl, twirl and whirl. . .)

Sending best thoughts to you all. 

PS. I forgot to mention I'm going to be away - on retreat - out on the magnificent Banks Peninsula for a few days following this exhibition opening. . . Back home mid-next week (weather permitting - heavy snow is forecast this weekend ; )).