Power of place,
Because we live on an extraordinary planet, we celebrate her poetics.
Kindred spirit & Environmental artist, Ruth Macdougall, toils inside the same streamline đ
Here, her website.
Power of place,
Because we live on an extraordinary planet, we celebrate her poetics.
Kindred spirit & Environmental artist, Ruth Macdougall, toils inside the same streamline đ
Here, her website.
Filed under 2015, arts, blogging, boats, celebration, collaboration, earth, geopoetics, home, PoP, scotland, spirit, Uncategorized
“Turn off the light, switch on a starry night…”
Noir, as November might predict. And if winter makes us reflect upon the dead, it is a time for us, living, to remember light in darkness.
Under that category, the world could feel a frozen garden. Whereas sleet, hail and snow batter the island in a horizontal manner, people fall, cry, fight wherever human bestiality strikes. The horrors of terrorism bear so many faces & masks.
Humanity feels in a state of emergency.
Our planet, our homeworld, our cradle of life, will turn our grave. This is Noir, without fiction.
Have we forgotten who we are, and where we live?
Are we missing the boat? Are we too shackled to money to risk such perilous gambling? On reading the French press, we are heading towards our end.
Noir,
Le Point.fr – COP21 : les lignes rouges des pays-clĂ©s dans les nĂ©gociations.
Tour d’horizon des points de blocage pour chacun des pays les plus influents pour la conclusion d’un accord sur le climat Ă Paris.
Le Point newspaper reads noir. As if we were doomed like the lost civilisations who were incapable to save themselves in ancient times. It tastes rotten deep in my heart. Maybe a handful of humans are solely blindly driven by greed and are prepared to take that road. Gosh, how selfish and masochistic. Do they know there is no way back, and nowhere else to go? This alone would feel a crime against humanity.
Talking of crime, Shetland hosted its first literary Noir Festival in November, as part of Iceland Noir.
For a weekend, selected authors gathered at Mareel, and shared with the public. Helmed by friend & fellow Westside Writer Marsali Taylor, we grabbed the oar and added a rivet to clinker by launching our unique noir anthology, as part of a book launch event shared with Marsali’s latest crime fiction opus. On a more personal note, and with the Beyrout & Paris shootings in the backdrop, it felt a very strange weekend.
Noir as man’s brilliance & blindness.
Noir is a path I do not like by nature. It feels sordid and dangerous.
When I think Noir, movies like Sir Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner & Luc Besson’s (satyrical) Fifth Element come to my mind.
I can only hope we are not heading into total blackness.
Seckou Keita returned to the island, with his koras, smiles and magic. A privilege, I felt, deep in my heart, as his hands began to weave the most ethereal sounds out of those 22 strings, fisher’s, musician’s dream. The man has a story to tell, fingers & voice to unleash. To listen to him and his beautiful vibes from Casamance, Senegal, blended with hints of nomadic spirit from his native Africa to Wales, is a delight. A joy to treasure in your heart. If you have not yet discovered his art, please, go find it!
To listen to the magician live remains a privilege.
With grateful thanks to Shetland Arts for bringing Seckou, as well as Gwyneth to the island. Magic moment tonight.
What a fabulous way to slide from Hairst – the harvest season – to the start of winter. Happy Samhain, everyone đ
And in response to his great show at Lerwick’s Art Centre, Mareel, a short poem woven from his music.
Fisherman’s Strings
Hear his fingers on stretched nylon –
Calebasse-skin from
Casamance,
each note travels through
waves & wind,
inside his heart shines Sénégal,
his grand father’s wisdom
so sharp,
the
taste of
dust South of his dreams;
his father’s eyes
locked inside
his,
travelling chords of he-nomad,
toute la souffrance des
harpistes.
© Nat Hall 2015
Chronicles from Arcania
Thoughts on life, writing, creativity and magic
About fantastical places and other stuff
Wherever I lay my pen, that's my home
Discover the world of birds at BirdNation!
Extinction of birds
Poetry & Prose inspired by people and places in the Western Isles of Scotland
Stories.... with a touch of India....
celebrating creativity in Shetland
Studio updates for Scottish Artist Douglas Robertson
Hay Writers' Circle ~ Established 1979 Based in Hay-on-Wye, Welsh Borders.
Chronicles from Arcania
Chronicles from Arcania
Favour the hand which pens the verses - within it's span are universes!
the texture of my life
Life through the eyes of a female with Aspergers