I read somewhere that the words ‘ekphrasis’ and ‘ekphrastic’ had at one stage a reference only in the Oxford dictionary, but nowadays these words are very much part of poets’ vocabularies and practices and most poets at some stage write poems responding to other art works. Erin Shiel’s poem ‘When the Wind Stopped’ was inspired by a number of works by John Wolseley, but rather than depicting the actual art works, her poem engages with Wolseley’s process of creating the works. He’s out in the landscape which has been burnt by fire and he lets sheets of paper be carried by the wind until they are caught on the charcoal twigs and branches of the mallee trees. As she says ‘The charcoal stipples and/ scrapes a song on the sheets.’ In this dancing, singing poem, in which the page becomes like a landscape and the lines become like blowing paper and the spaces give a sense of the temporal, we have an intimate insight into a creative process in which nature, weather, space and time are all participants. Shiel so beautifully enacts all the physical processes that accumulate to produce these art works. The body is as integral as the charcoal because Wolseley has to chase these sheets of paper as they are blown by the wind: ‘He carries them out of the wind/ on his two outstretched arms back/ to a clearing and lays them tenderly/ on a carpet of red dust.’ I love the way Shiel describes the whole collaborative enterprise.
The enchanting connection between land and voice – (reminiscent of Aboriginal song-lines and the idea of ‘singing up country’) is so poignantly evoked: ‘He sings the song the charcoal/scrawls have composed/ and stills them with his voice.’ The language of the poem is very verb-oriented which creates a strong sense of process, action, movement and this works in tandem with the shape of the poem, but if we notice the first verb in the poem it is ‘stands’, and by the end of the poem the sheets of paper are at rest. There’s resolution, completion, calm. This poem so effectively draws out and highlights the intimate relationship between the body, the environment and the imagination. It reminds us of the deep interconnection between mind and matter.
When the Wind Stopped
Wolseley stands on the hill under
the scribbly gum looking over
the scrub, eyes flickering over burnt
bush. The trunks of the eucalypts
kneel on a cushion of new green,
dead arms extend up in praise,
lemon myrtle their incense.
He unrolls the paper and cuts
as though he’s releasing a chained
creature, sliding the scissors
through, feeling the smooth
incision, wincing at occasional
jags as the angle of the blade
shifts. Ahead burnt out scrub
follows the flow of the terrain,
heights of the trees varying,
limbs tracing the rise and fall
of the land so from above
it is a carpet of foliage.
He releases the sheets one by one.
They flap and fly over
the scrub like cumbersome
birds unaccustomed to catching
the breeze. Feathered ends flay,
unfurl power but the wind
drops and the flapping
settles into a glide until
the sheets are caught
by the reaching arms of the mallee.
The charcoal stipples and
scrapes a song on the sheets.
They struggle,
flapping then wrapping,
settling to swaddle low
burnt out baby bushes.
The pages caress and
smooth the hangnails of
petrified twigs.
They stretch a fraction
to scratch their song.
The charcoal song pleases
Wolseley still standing on the hill.
He taps one foot impatiently. Leans
to one sheet of paper then
another before he dances
through the mallee chasing
them one by one.
He calms their scrimmage,
detaching them from
snags and twigs.
He carries them out of the wind
on his two outstretched arms back
to a clearing and lays them tenderly
on a carpet of red dust.
He sings the song the charcoal
scrawls have composed
and stills them with his voice.
While they rest he considers the ring
necked parrots screeching above.
How will he entice them
to land on the scroll
that documents the mallee song?
Inspired by the art of John Wolseley, various works.
