Wild Seed

Lynette Arden

Description

These poems travel narrow roads deep north, and they take slow boats east; they sail the Nile south, and they safari in Africa; they turn paintings inside out and find our faces there; they long for love long after love let go; they poke fingers in the eyes of the pompous, and they reincarnate Vincent in the suburbs—and they do all this with a quiet mastery of forms borrowed from all quarters of the world, all the while standing in a kitchen cooking quinces, sitting at an office desk after hours turning emails into prayers.
From the review by Mark Tredinnick

Sujets

• Poetry

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press AU
• Date de parution: 08 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781982295417
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

WILD SEED
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
LYNETTE ARDEN
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Lynette Arden.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by
any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system
without the written permission of the author except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
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ISBN: 978-1-9822-9540-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-9822-9541-7 (e)
 
Balboa Press rev. date:   07/21/2022
 
Thanks to Graham Rowlands for his advice on structuring and editing the manuscript.
Members of various writers’ groups have given me encouragement and valuable feedback on my writing. Adelaide U3A Writers Workshop, Friendly Street Poets, Kensington & Norwood Writers Group, Bindii Japanese Genre Poetry Group and City Writers.
 
Wild Seed is a tended garden in which a wilderness grows. Lynette Arden wakes the domestic in these poems, which read like “the plants that grow best …brought by birds or the wind,” prospering “between careful cultivars”. Wild Seed is a book of kind, astute, intelligent poems, and it feels patiently fabricated, waited for, a river that’s reached its sea. These poems travel narrow roads deep north, and they take slow boats east; they sail the Nile south, and they safari in Africa; they turn paintings inside out and find our faces there; they long for love long after love let go; they poke fingers in the eyes of the pompous, and they reincarnate Vincent in the suburbs—and they do all this with a quiet mastery of forms borrowed from all quarters of the world, all the while standing in a kitchen cooking quinces, sitting at an office desk after hours turning emails into prayers.
Mark Tredinnick
In Wild Seed Lynette Arden lets us sit in the window seat as she distills crisp moments into memorable free-verse snapshots, stunning villanelles, haiku or tanka. Arden observes the fringe of fur on hippo ears ; the giraffe’s neck, escalator-long; and how the cricket stutter stops at a footfall . Equally adept at portraying her fellow humans, Arden notices the optimism as the ninety-year-old applies sunscreen and the migraine sufferer’s view of the edge of a whirling fan . So sit back and enjoy this poetic journey, confidently and masterfully driven by a poet with depth, diversity and insight.
Jude Aquilina
Lynette Arden’s competence and understanding of Japanese poetic genres are evident in her free verse too. Concise expression, clear imagery and a sense of the immediate are hallmarks of this collection.
Individualism and independent thinking are apparent, balanced by a respect for history and deep regard for the natural world. Compassionate awareness of the lives of animals, both domesticated and untamed, bring an appealing dimension to her writing.
The collection is expertly but unobtrusively sequenced in a way that invites the reader to keep turning pages: explore something new.
Beverley George (Past President, The Australian Haiku Society)
Lynette Arden’s poetry is observant, accomplished and engaging as she takes us through the vagaries of experience. In Wild Seed she moves seamlessly from the wry humour of senryu and the vibrant imagery of haiku to the emotional complexity of tanka and beyond.
Vanessa Proctor (Past President, The Australian Haiku Society)
Wild Seed inscribes the arc of a life’s journey with poignant glimpses along the way.
While she employs a variety of poetic forms, her dexterity with images and succinctness particularly demonstrate Arden’s mastery of Japanese brief forms. It’s a world of random moments, pathos and acute observation where desiccated leaves whisper in a soft gossiping, rain slaps the glass/ trickling summer dust /to a map of winter, wind scoops/the hollow of the letter box / slides under the door , a water jug on a train tilts against the horizon, a dying sister is commemorated Her hair… the colour of poured tea, the chirping of small birds pricks the air , a lake brimming like an eyeful of t ears.
Then there are deftly drawn sketches of animals and a beach umbrella/ tying down/the wind.
This is Lynette Arden’s first full collection. The wait has been worth it.
Rob Walker
 
Some of these poems have been previously published in journals and anthologies, including:
Blue Dog Australian Poetry, The Little Book of Cats (National Library of Australia), Friendly Street Poets anthologies, Poets Union Inc. anthologies, PoetWorks Press anthologies, Third Australian Haiku Anthology , The Tanka Journal (Japan), Presence, Famous Reporter , OzPoet Treasury, The Mozzie, Writers on Parade, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka, Failed Haiku , Ribbons, A Vast Sky, Failed Haiku, Valley Micropress , 100 Tanka by 100 Poets of Australia and New Zealand, Narrator Australia, Haiku Bindii Journal , Eucalypt, Prospect Five, World Haiku Review, paper wasp , All You Need is Love ( ed. Amelia Fielden)
Contents
Harvest
Haiku
Waiting
Cruising
Trouble
Wild Seed
Simile
Tanka
Haiku
Bargain
Tea Lady
Drawing Breath
A Thousand Steps
Letter from Paris
Train Song
Oriental Journeys
Auburn
Not Her Funeral
Haiku
Saturday Visit
Death of a Neighbour
Winter Sun Wedding
After
Reunion
Incident at Afternoon Tea
Haiku
Options
Nile
Giraffe
Emu
Tapir
Lion
Cat
My Human
Tanka
Untitled
Revisit
Haiku
Whale
Decision at the Orchard
The Policeman’s Cow
Only
Commuter Dawn
Vincent
Spectacles
Light
Haiku
Tanka
Haiku
Life Blood
Sky Blue
Haiku
Rain in March
Haiku
Tanka
Hope
Top of Town
On John Brack: Collins Street, 5 pm (1955)
Offices are Anathema to Poetry
Casual
Haiku
Musical Chairs
Just Words
Happening
Real
Haiku
Changing the Unchangeable
Glissando
Surreal
Suburbs of the Mind: Illusion and Delusion
Approaching Night
Breath of Wind, Flight of Swallows
The Last Beam of Sunlight
Coming Home
On John Brack paintings: The New House (1953) and The Old Time from Ballroom Dancers series (1969)
About The Author
Harvest
I’ll be cooking quinces if you arrive
in autumn, leaves beginning to fall,
motorbike sputtering at the end of the drive.
 
Days have spun past and the years sprawl,
a collection of bright photos without your face.
In autumn, leaves beginning to fall,
 
I wondered if many years could efface
the longing that bound my heart and mind.