Product Description
This collection of 45 poems evokes spirits of place, particularly in the poems about Albania, and range through various aspects of the natural and human world, as in "Crow Poems", "Beowulf the Bold", "Canal Street Cafe" - to a combination of the two - "Jardin en Mouvement" and "The Sculptor's Garden". The profound effects of memory, as in "Remembering Giancarlo", juggle with a mixture of absence and presence, as in "Leaving Albania", "Light", and "The Messenger". Behind the skin of how things seem in the phenomenal world, there is the non-visible, whose reality can often be tapped into through movement and journey, whether literal or metaphorical.
About the Author
Once in a cafe, after overhearing a conversation I'd had with a friend, a complete stranger made the comment to me that I was clearly 'one of life's buskers'. Like her, and surely all writers, I am also a snooper and eavesdropper, in awe of writers who recount fascinating stories told them by others, because I lack the courage to whip out a notebook and write as they're speaking, and lack the memory to remember them afterwards. Dreaming is my other life, a wild and inseparable commentary on this one. My first published story (in 1980) was based on a dream. I now have a base (house and garden) in a remote little village in Scotland but still frequently succumb to the lure of movement - bus, plane, boat or train (my favourite) and the intoxication of foreign places. I've had many different jobs, among them artist's model, housepainter, EFL teacher, astrologer, aid worker, Creative Writing teacher and support worker. I have never actually busked in the street, though I was briefly a singer and drummer in a band. I have two children, now grown up, Frieda and Matti, my most wonderful creations. Poems, stories, articles and a novel have been published in magazines, anthologies, websites, newspapers and on transport systems. I have collaborated and held two exhibitions with five visual artists. Two previous poetry collections have been published, The Star Reaper and Deepwater Terminal. My latest book is a collection of stories - Streets of Tirana, Almost Spring - published by ORA, Albania (2004). Website is in the process of construction. My current projects include a travel book, a collection of travel stories and essays, a collection of writing-related essays and another novel.
