Poem in The Woven Tale Press

Many thanks to Sandra Tyler at Woven Tale. I’m thrilled that my poem is included in the latest issue of The Woven Tale Press. It’s a stunning fine art and literary magazine. A visual banquet. You can subscribe here, it’s free and fab.  I’ve picked out a few items in this issue that struck me immediately as I flicked through (I haven’t had the chance to look in great detail). I haven’t included images because you can easily take a better, more detailed look by clicking, and anyway I probably shouldn’t.

The very first image strikes a chord with me. It is of Elizabeth Coetzee’s intricate handmade books which she crafts from found material, old drawings and diary pages fastened with twine. The book houses her enigmatic photographs of hands in two accordion-style booklets. It makes you want to handle it. It really does. It’s treasure. Follow the link if you’d like to take a look at images of her work and then you could flick through to everyone else.

Sandrine Hermand-Grisel’s series of photographs ‘Waterlilies’ resemble oil paintings, and it’s uncanny how the wateriness is implied. And to follow the watery theme, is Lisa Stice’s poem ‘Man with Unhealthy Complexion Listening to the Sound of the Sea’ – great title, and I love how it ends – I won’t give it away though!

Rachel Rozanski’s untitled charcoal drawings are intricate and menacing like growths or scars or growls, but simultaneously beautiful. The descriptions states that: ‘Her research-based drawings document the unidentifiable objects that make up an ecosystem in the Anthropocene.’ How mystifying!

I find art can so easily generate stories. Paula Rae Gibson uses chemicals, paint and chalk to change her photographs, giving them age and texture. Mostly faces, they are fascinating to look at and each might contain many stories. You could easily spend ten minutes staring at one of these, thinking things up.

‘Threads’, Susan Stamm Evans series of bronzes of fragmented faces evoke a balance between strength and fragility. She mentions the threads of events, people or thoughts that interweave to make us who we are.  Again, how wonderful it would be to see these in the flesh, to touch them. They are enticingly tactile images, and ‘Together’ is awfully intimate. The bronze heads could be breathing.

The more I flick through the magazine, the more I see, and the more I could write about and this post would go on and on, and no one would appreciate that. I haven’t even read the stories yet. Below is a list of the contributors. I will be checking out the others at some point. Why rush? Books, art and music are seldom improved by rushing. Also, for the amusement of your ear worm, here’s a link to some Stravinsky you might enjoy. The following few songs are also ace and extraordinary.