This morning Jacquie Campbell announced
a micro nature reserve in Looms Lane, prompting a response from poet
Phil Barrett and Astra Papachristodoulou.
I see a voice
A
mouthpiece, a chink, an aperture, a hole in air, a hole in the
wall;
Let’s get some cash out and leave a note – an IOU –
or
put something in – a message in a bottle (if only to ourselves)
–
in this small hideaway, this little hidey-hole, a crucible for
making lead into gold.
A brick house, a round arch, a
circular hole, a wheel of fortune.
Let’s spell it out –
there’s nowhere left for us to go, and nowhere too small
for
a nature reserve, a concept – considered or ill-conceived –
concealed
in this last remaining hole. Are we big enough to take
it on?
A smaller world that doesn’t exist yet,
but will – and they don’t come
much smaller than this.
Small enough to create its own horizons, and
close enough to
look over or through. (But what’s on the other side?)
Does
it matter? Does any hole make a home? (Except for you or me,
for
whom time is running out – We’re running-out of homes!) Key
stories, key facts,
key words, key holes, key stones, not a
place to live in; a bee house, or bee hive,
a Borrowers’
hideaway, a place to grow up in, a gap between two holes or
two
worlds. With a ring for the finger, a ball for a toe,
and we shall have music
where ever we go; the
soundtrack for a broken world, a world divided into two;
as
re-inventing the wheel, round and round we go – the wheels on the
bus;
the wheels of the world, a whole world, or a world in a hole,
a hole in one,
symbolising a beginning or an end, a new
horizon. A space or a ship,
a clean sheet or a
clean shirt – the shirt off our backs – but where to now?
Where
do we go? The down-ward spiral or slide, like a rolling stone. A deep
place
or space, or a shallow hole, a natural place to hide
in, a peep or pin or loop hole,
a place to hideout or a
place to let go – on the way to somewhere else, with
somewhere
else still to go. In or out, two sides of a gap between two holes.
So,
where to next? – we’ve got (a lot) to learn, about
making holes – and can’t conceive
of the consequences of
such a world, where the inhabitants have had to leave,
have
all flown, leaving an empty seedpod or shell, like an open door; a
conker,
or canker, or this fallen apple, without a
core.
Phil Barrett
mosaico
brickwork
brickwork
bend
nestle - mend
around the curves
it seeks refuge
Astra
Papachritodoulou
Jacquie Campbell As someone who is
simultaneously baffled and fascinated by the everyday world, my art
practice allows me to explore the questions that niggle at the back
of my mind. Often these questions focus on the entanglement of
people, process and place.
Recently I’ve become absorbed
with those overlooked and often fleeting, opportunistic habitats that
open up in the cracks and detritus of our built surroundings. How
might a passer-by be invited to experience and get to know
these hidden places and processes? Would a different way of knowing
our surroundings open up new and playful environmental thinking? For
more details see www.jaccampbell.com Instagram
@jaccampbellrojo Twitter @RojoArtists
Phil
Barrett taught art for 27 years, then retired to his
home county of Norfolk where he concentrates on writing. He teaches
creative writing, in schools and libraries across North Norfolk.
He has won prizes and commendations in national competitions,
and has been published in anthologies including In Protest: 150
poems for Human Rights (2013), Word Aid Anthologies Did I
Tell You? (2010), and Not Only The Dark (2011),
the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine, and Poems in the
Waiting Room in 2016 and 2019. In January 2017 he published
a book of poems, Writing Me, about growing-up.
Astra
Papachristodoulou, artist and poet, is a recent graduate
from the MA Creative Writing (Poetic Practice) at Royal
Holloway. She has read at poetry events including the European
Poetry Festival and The Enemies Project. Her poetry
has appeared in small magazines and anthologies including The
Tangerine, Eborakon Journal and 3:am
Magazine. Astra delivers experimental poetry workshops at
the University for the Creative Arts and freelances for
the Poetry Society. She won the Pebeo Mixed Media Art
Prize in 2016, and her visual work has been showcased at contemporary
art exhibitions including the National Poetry Library (Southbank
Centre) and the Museum of Futures in London.
