Hope?
How can we look beyond?
Monster, monster how you creep…
What can we do to remain strong in the pandemic and other world disasters right now?
How can we look more deeply to the future and the way out of this current challenge to humanity?
How can we look beyond now with optimism?
As a writer and storyteller I don’t want to tell others how to feel, or what to do, but nor do I want to avoid the monstrous experiences all around us.
I don’t want to be absorbed with myself!
Monster, monster, sent to make me wake ?
I want to find stories that challenge me and others to think, question, examine and make decisions that will empower us all.
There have been so many monsters lurking before this time, that perhaps we did not listen to their mumbling, or take note of their creeping and failed to see them growing and growing.
Maybe we noticed some more than others.
Maybe though we closed our eyes, and listened to their tears, and their moaning…
Those monsters are extremes of wealth and poverty, a lack of access to education for many in the world, systemised racism, inequality of woman and man,and much much more.
Two steps forward, one step back.
How many monsters can you name?
How many do you see blinking, behind you, away from the light?
So many monsters lurking, growing, following us, and some of us not choosing to look back and tackle them.
I keep thinking of the role of the poet as the canary taking in the toxic fumes to save the miners. The poet, the artist, the sensitive feeling the struggles sniffing out the monster’s treacherous trails.
Two steps forward, one step back…
But I don’t want to be a canary that is knocked out by the fumes of toxic parts of human experience right now
Monster, monster let me sing !
I want to sing, even if this experience feels like a cage,
around us all.
I want to sing of the beyond.
What is beyond the pandemic?
What will lead us beyond?
Will we let the treacherous overcome us, or will we slay these monsters once and for all?
30/07/2020 (c) June Perkins
Meet the Illustrators of Illuminations
Meet the Illustrators of Illuminations!
What is your favourite part of the illustration process?
It is so exciting to see the end product, When all the different components come together as one coherent work. We are always in awe of the way that effective collaboration between the author, designers and illustrators can allows things to evolve and really get refined into something that far exceeds what you were able to imagine at the beginning.
For the rest of this story head to Meet Ruha and Minaira Fifita head to
Also visit the sound cloud of a chat with Ruha and Minaira Fifita
Tokens – Issue 11
I have some new work included in the current issue of Tokens!
Many poems from Illuminations were first shared in this publication.
Friends of Tokens Magazine, please take a look at our website, www.tokenspoetry.org, and leave us a comment about how you would like to see it improved. Thank you. You can order a subscription of one year (two issues) from us, or individual copies from the Baha’i Distribution Service at www.bahaibookstore.com.
Thanks for supporting the arts in any way you can.
Jim, Nancy and Melanie.
Panacea Poets
A huge thank you to the Queensland Poetry Festival team for the invitation to be part of Panacea Poets.
In Panacea Poets, Queensland Poetry Festival administers a twice-weekly booster of short readings from wonderful poets via their youtube channel.
QPF will deliver these soothing doses of poets-in-iso indefinitely.
It is such a great honour to be part of a project to apply the bird of poetry to the experience of the Pandemic, and to maybe inspire listeners to draw on their strengths and optimism.
So many esteemed and inspiring poets – Kirli Saunders, Stuart Barnes, Charmaine Papertalk Green to name just a few, do check out the playlist! I’ll share a few of my faves from time to time!
Here is my reading!
