Helen Lehndorf
writer
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black river / peoples’ river
Last Friday the public collaboration phase of the BLACK RIVER exhibition I’ve been involved with was launched at Te Manawa. In support of the exhibition, the poets and artists have their drafts/sketches on display in a cabinet. The idea of this was to share creative process with the public. It is a little bit exposing…
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victory gardens / mend and make do
I’m very inspired by World War Two imagery around Victory Gardens and Mend & Make Do campaigns. I’m also fascinated by the Land Girls / Womens’ Land Army, and the way WW2 changed work life for women in the West forever. I recently had a pile of WW2 social history books out of the library…
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modus operandi : life
<<< Phrase stolen from this three minutes and forty five seconds of genius >>>
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fresh inspiration
When is an ‘inspiration wall’ not an inspiration wall? When it’s been up for almost two years and you’ve stopped seeing it anymore… I have a creative room out in my backyard. Our garage was converted to a sleepout by previous owners and now we’ve set it up so half of it is guest-room (well,…
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recent reading, ongoing thinking
I noticed a theme in my reading recently – lots of books with ‘Wild’ in the title! I am reading and writing about nature/bioregionalism/ecology/contemporary spirituality….so I guess ‘wildness’ is a thread through all of these things. The Wild Places, by Robert McFarlane Wild, by Jay Griffiths (This book remains my favourite book IN THE WORLD…
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KUPU, part two
Some photos of KUPU, the ‘poetry off the page’ installation which I did in the Palmerston North City Library with fellow local poet, Leonel Alvarado. First instalment was back HERE, when they had only installed one poem. Here are some photographs of the other poems. Glimpses of Leonel’s poems (his were harder to photograph in…
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‘KUPU’ – a poetry installation at the Palmerston North City Library
Happy National Poetry Day! I have done something (read poems, handed out poems, chalked poems on the street, pot-luck poetry lunches, megaphone poetry on Cuba Street etc etc…) every year since Poetry Day began in the 1990s. Of course, every day is poetry day when you are a poet, but it’s lovely to have a…
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The Rope Walk is launched!
Before I blather on about the launch of this fine, artisanally-produced book THIS IS WHERE YOU CAN ORDER ONE. GO ON. SUPPORT NZ POETRY AND INDIE-PUBLISHING. On the weekend, I attended my darling friend Maria McMillan’s (I wrote a bit about Maria HERE) book launch at the Aro Community Hall. This is her first book…
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same same, but different
The residency is over. I’m all moved out of the flat and I handed the keys back in. I’ve been feeling a little flat this week – since I found out I got the residency last November, it was the thing I was looking forward to about this year….then suddenly I was there and doing…
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what you hold on to
On Sunday the sun came out after two days of heavy rain. Various plants were doing a beautiful job of holding water on their surface…jewel-like, shining in the sun. I have just two weeks to go of the residency! It’s gone SO FAST. BACK HERE I said I was going to write about it here…
Helen Lehndorf 