Busy, busy~~ with the ongoing projects and the teaching at a primary school! Thank you for a great patience for this blog.
Nationally and internationally established author and poet, Libby Hathorn invited me for writers' book signing and poem reading at Brown St Community Centre. I was looking at this old poet from a distance and sketched Libby, too. Very lovely to listen to each poet's reading out. Libby's three poems were outstanding to my ears and heart. Deep thinker Libby is so sensitive, honest with herself and wanting for social justice, but she is caring for others or readers. The more I know her, the more I admire her.
Her poems are all quite visually evocative that stimulate my imagination. The third one on Hamelin Piper Story and our never comeback childhood, has caught my heart. As well as Robert Browning's poem in English, I've found Goethe's poem -- it seems a bit different from Robert Browning. I mean, Goethe thought of girls, women, hahaha!!? I love him!! Ah, I always wish I could see Pied Piper of Hamelin. What sort of man he was -- appearance, etc, etc. In the poem, Libby looks into his face and eyes. Me, too, eager to do it. But, Libby, you're caring. The empathetic poet knows the agony of parents who lost children or kidnapped by the Pied Piper of Hamelin. She sings the pain on behalf of parents. Yet, the poet cannot help hold her wish, the long for a never-return childhood, boyhood. The poet sings for our shining time, a frozen memory like Shaun Tan visualised in "The Lost Thing." As an adult, we have so sweet and bitter emotion to childhood in general and our own childhoods. Probably, only artists and children can keep a divine sanctuary. Or, artists are the species that can freely revisit childhood, even after being grown up.
An old poet reading out his work.
The first humanistic
poem quests social justice and peace, advocating the powerless and the voiceless. The poem is on pigs and Pol Pot in Cambodia. Wow, I wondered, what this
poet, Libby saw in Cambodia, while other tourists were just having a fun. Libby, you're a wonderful lady!!
How often do you read poems? Social media seems to taking over a quiet reading time. But Libby's invitation pulls me back to book reading.
Btw, joining book launches and book signing is a good idea for networking in publishing industry. There, you can promote yourself for publishers and make new friends. So, go for it and distribute your business cards! It's similar for fine artists to visit exhibitions and chat with participants. I will join Wayne Harris' making picture book workshop from this Thursday.
I'm studying portraits and landscapes. Particularly, I'm practising values and colour mixtures in landscapes. I do it in a small size to learn composition.
Friends, enjoy your artist lives. Let's make our dreams come true. Strive to make it come true. Big cheers and hugs for you. Happy Painting! Thank you for reading!!
Invited for Poems by Libby Hathorn
