A reminder that 2020 Shelter in Place kicks off next week at the G3 Gallery in Parkdale. A series of cross-media responses to the various intensities of last year, 2020 Shelter in Place is a collaborate exploration in poetry and paint. from me and visual artist Sharon Monagle. Please also note that you will need to register for your free ticket via the links below (to meet Covid-safe requirements).

We would love to see you at the Opening of the exhibition and Launch of the book of the project (Liquid Amber Press) next Thursday April 15, 6-8, and/or at the Poetry Reading and Artist Talk, Saturday May 1, 2-4.

Opening of exhibition and launch of book, Thursday April 15, 6-8

Poetry Reading and Artist Talk, Saturday May 1, 2-4

We’re really looking forward to sharing our work with you!

My new collaborative exhibition, 2020 Shelter in Place with visual artist Sharon Monagle, opens at the Kingston G3 Gallery Space in Parkdale. Emerging from the realities of ‘friendship in isolation,’ these conversations in poetry and paint track us through that strange year.

• Opening and Launch by poet Anne M. Carson, 6-8pm Thursday April 15.
• Interactive Poetry Reading and Artist Talk, 2-4pm Saturday May 1

The exclusive book of the project/exhibition (Liquid Amber Press), including both poems and paintings, will be available at the Gallery.

We hope to see you there!

We may still be in lockdown, but it is Spring and that at least needs celebrating!

Conditions for Joy

A seed        incipient      lodging in the right soil       an attention     

patient    to the act of watering         the warmth of lengthening days and the quiet

dark of build and slip and        incremental           unfurling

Blackbird

In warmth of sunshine      and sudden bursts of rain         a blackbird

sings his territory    to me      from fig tree   to lemon   to bougainvillea            his small body

vibrating     with expostulation     and cadence     and the seriousness of his season

What it means to be busy

Their springtime nest      tunnelled   into a warm bank of earth   the spotted pardalotes

are busy as                          a Buddhist monk                    doing chores and

basking            in the first shimmer       of morning light

This pair of poems – two faces of response to the pandemic we are living through – has just been published in Mensicus literary journal. https://www.meniscus.org.au/Vol8Iss1.pdf. Thanks to Jen Webb and Shane Strange.

Pandemic Moods

1.      Anxiety

clutches               like a virus

at surfaces         the warm vulnerability

of membranes                               it hangs

heavy in air

droplets of contagion     impossible

to see   chasing at shadows

              filling my time   frantic

with the wrong things

or maybe the wrong things         I can’t

tell         presentiments of doom

weigh on me                    a vice that grips

like a headache

something is proliferating          

a wild cacophony            pounding

at the fragile borders of this body

                             seeking its own path

trying to get in

2. Compassion     

is a tall tree

a searching filigree of roots              a steadiness that

reaches               risky      into changeable air         while

leaves   like open palms       signal

to a restless world

I see you

and it’s possible to

rest here            a short time

in the deep pulse            and dance of      shadow

grass     sweet    with summer rain

under the arch of my arms

this        flickering            cathedral of green

In remembrance of my dear mother – and in acknowledgement of the complex work of mothering.

You came back

             she said     her hands

fluttering around her face      abroad   in the air

between us        they are brittle wings unfolding     in that scrubbed

corridor       when she looks up from her wheelchair    suddenly   

ecstatic            weeping                   you   came back

from where?   I come out of the day

flurried    my own worn hands    catching

hers     stroking        I will always

come back    to sit close    to walk quiet streets together

under plane trees       their generous leaves

until I remember     how I first left her   flush

with the hubris of youth     and how she stood on the nature strip

vulnerable      trying not to touch me      or hold me     just asking

me to come home          but I went     anyway   my face

turned    resolutely   in a different direction

it was years    too many     before

I looked back      properly   before I saw her      a good person

living her life     tending hydrangeas   cradling

generations of children      moving

like all of us           through uncertainty and pleasure

toward the always unexpected      dark fields       this slow

drift into clouded water  

  I came back      just

as she unmoored 
      

          
this island        this fragile

territory                              where I have always been