The Vulnerability of the Ear - Nugget No.2

The heart of matter

Not the heart of the matter, but the heart of matter. Not figurative, but literal: matter being the web of existence, strung between tangible and intangible 'stuff' - all of it real, all of it available to our feeling, sensing, thinking bodies.

We turn it into music, we compose it into poems, we shape it into art and buildings, we make it into food and furniture and films.

And I have made it into a book ... 'book' being rooted in the German word 'Buche' - beech.

And a beech in my garden gave me, and my husband, healing.

When I created my website, Maggie, who set it up for me, wrote that my blog was where I would speak my heart. And where I would be quiet at times.

Sometimes, speaking my heart is the same as being quiet.

Yes. Speaking the heart makes a  sanctuary space, a protection against babble.

Two poetry books

The new Ecca book, Staying Hungry, is at the printers. It will - together with readings from last year's book, Throw in your Song - be presented at the McGregor Poetry Festival by Ecca Poets Brian Walter, Olwethu Mxoli, Ed Burle, Jacques Coetzee and John van Wyngaard. Click https://poetryinmcgregor.co.za/event/event-35-throw-in-your-song/

Thank you, yet again, to Mike Barwood, for a beautifully intelligent cover design.

Staying Hungry will be launched formally on 12th October 2019, 6-7pm, at The Rose Theatre in Hogsback, over the Hogsback Spring Festival.