This month: a new poem from Tony and a review of a colouring book from Barbara

Barbara Holden reviewing Sarah Jane Carter ‘adult colouring book – mandalas and patterns’ (2018)

I’ve been enjoying crafting at our local church for a few years. This is mostly for me to do with air-dried clay. Originally when it was a sculpture club we also did work with wood. From this good experience I got into colouring. I’ve used books of mandalas, others of geometric shapes, one about Iona (which I visited years ago) and another using biblical texts. In the latter doing the colouring encourages me to engage with the texts in a fresh way. This one by Sarah Jane Carter has just the right balance of choice, complexity, and satisfaction. The photo is of one of my favourites.

Tony Holden ‘constructing poems’

“Poetry is a made thing above everything else” (Clive James ‘The Fire of Joy’ 2020) and “Zimmer's chief concern in life was writing poetry, and he spent long, hard hours at it, labouring over each word as if the fate of the world hung in the balance - which is surely the only sensible way to go about it” (Paul Auster ‘Moon Palace’ 1989).

[1]

I have no visual memory to kickstart my drawings

But poems begin as I reach and search for words,

They form out of the desire to be creative,

[2]

I step aside from negativity and violence

I withdraw from noise, anxiety, and disorder

Then, at best, I find myself in mindful-focus,

[3]

And overtime, [as I edit and type the text],

The poem shows itself, and the words slowly

Surface from silence and my imagination,

[4]

Look, they whisper - listen they say

Consider this, they urge -

Do no harm: stop killing people.