The joy of reading aloud to a child surely springs from their absorption and responsiveness which we, the adults, can clearly see. When I began to write stories for my numerous small relatives, I first thought, following the current practice, that pictures were essential, but soon found my own attempts to draw so woeful that … Continue reading “The joy of reading to a child”
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My new book The Mind’s Eye
My next book, The Mind’s Eye, will be published on 23rd May 2025. It is designed to be read aloud to young children aged about three and a half to six. Unusually, it has no illustrations. I believe it is important to nurture the faculty of image-making, especially in our times when children receive an … Continue reading “My new book The Mind’s Eye”
1. How I came to marry poems and paintings
During lockdown, I began to explore my husband’s collection of art books which filled our shelves and which I had never previously paid much attention to. I came to realise that there might be a poem in some of the paintings, particularly but not exclusively those which caught so vividly a significant moment in time, … Continue reading “1. How I came to marry poems and paintings”
2. My poems from paintings project
At the heart of the poetry project was a feeling of wonder – wonder at the skill of the artist, and also wonder at what the artist meant to convey, always aware that my intuition might be very different from others’ responses. This sense of ambivalence is most clearly displayed in Surrealist paintings – What … Continue reading “2. My poems from paintings project”
3. The driving force of poetry
I have learned a great deal through writing these poems. As a child, art and literature were linked: my mother had a book of Pre-Raphaelite paintings where I found, to my delight, The Lady of Shalott, Mariana at the Moated Grange, Ophelia and others. Since those early days, I have, of course, been to many … Continue reading “3. The driving force of poetry”