www.ginninderrapress.com.au

Opus: A life in music by Pip Griffin

colleen General, Poetry , , , , , ,
 The award winning poet Pip Griffin delighted me with one of the first copies of her new poetry collection,

Opus
A life with music

Using a creative metaphor, I am proud to say I was one of the midwives in its  creative  growth and  Pip’s  birthing of the book.   The joys and nurturing of music in our lives  always came through as Pip’s poetic ideas grew .

A  great combination of life and music, a mood and a mode,  a singular voice,  that draws her readers like me to each new poem she writes. 
I am thrilled for Pip and honoured to be her friend.
 Opus: A life with music is a stunning collection, beautifully written and withheld.’ – Libby Sommer
‘“Through music, we can say what we didn’t even know we felt.” – Ed Le Brocq. What more powerful way to reflect on your journey of life than entwined with the memory of music. Exquisitely wrought, Opus gives us snapshots, sometimes softened, sometimes shocking but always honed and beautifully crafted, revealing a deep perception and intimacy as we have come to know of Pip Griffin’s poetry.’ – Colleen Keating
‘Pip Griffin’s Opus is a gently written verse memoir of her childhood in New Zealand to her mature years in Australia. References to Chopin, Mahler, Gustav Holst, Elvis Presley and many others justify its subtitle, “a life with music”. Touches of sadness, including her partner’s death and her mother’s thwarted dreams, balance the collection’s positive tone. This is poetry to read over a few winter evenings by the fire or summer afternoons in the shade of a tree.’ – Norm Neill
Opus is Pip Griffin’s eighth poetry publication. Her books include Virginia & Katherine: The Secret Diaries (Pohutukawa Press 2022), Winner, Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards (poetry) 2022; Margaret Caro, the extraordinary life of a pioneering dentist (Pohutukawa Press 2020) Highly Commended, Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards (poetry) 2020; Mood Indigo (Picaro Poets 2019) with Colleen Keating and The Climb Back: poems for Ted (Ginninderra Press 2021).
Two of Pip’s poems Libertango and The Dave Brubeck Quartet were published in the  recent
Women’s Ink,  Autumn 2023
       

Libertango

One winter’s evening
in an old asylum’s grounds
there’s a hub of warmth –
coffee, conversation, music

where a diminutive young woman
dances her bow across her double bass
syncopating with guitar
playing the Libertango.

They have the audience –
folk followers, musicians
poets, singers
maybe even shades of troubled souls

clapping, tapping their feet
swaying, smiling
surrendering their bodies to the seductive beat
of a sultry Buenos Aires night.

Pip Griffin

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

At twenty she shares a flat with friends
in half a house that clambers up the hill in Thorndon

adds a Brubeck record to her Bach and Brahms
buys a ticket to his Town Hall concert

and sits alone amongst expectant fans
taut as drum skins begging to be played.

Brain on fire with crooked rhythms
her body jitterbugs to teasing riffs

the dry martini saxophone stirs her spine
dizzying drumming pummels her solar plexus

and there is Brubeck – bespectacled face beaming
striding syncopated chords across the keyboard.

Pip Griffin

available through ginninderrapress/our books

978 1 76109 570 2, 86pp

Versions

Paperback

9781761095702
$22.50
 Pip is waiting for reviews of Opus: A life in music  but I share one early,  very special response from a friend that was one of the first readers of Opus and found it an enrichment to her life. What more beautiful words can one say.
Then, along comes Opus. Start to read. Read, read, read to the end. Close the book. Hold it in my hand. It’s like a living, breathing thing. Reading Opus has left me with the distinct impression I’ve been allowed into my dear friend’s inner circle.
The music references are genuinely intertwined with the sensuousness being evoked, and the life’s chapters being retold. 
If I can get to particulars, dear Pip, it’s the frankness about your childhood, teenage life, distant siblings, old and troubled parents, that infuses your writing with such authenticity. My family experience was similar in some aspects, but I could never write about it in such an honest way. The music accompanying each chapter brings enrichment to the experience of reading your words, and moves the story of your ‘life with music’ along at a healthy pace, and carries the reader with you.
I’ll treasure your Opus, Pip, so thank you for your gift.

The Climb Back Poems for Ted by Pip Griffin

colleen General , , , , , , ,
‘
Congratulations to my friend Pip Griffin. Her new poetry collection  The Climb Back  Poems for Ted is up on the Ginninderra  Press web site.   A worthy read  . . . .’these passionate poems open out and touch us with a consoling grief’
and as I wrote,
 ‘For those of us who know life is a gift and are called to the hard work of hope, The Climb Back is invaluable.’
Highly recommended
There is a fierce tenderness in these poems of happy remembrance and devastating sorrow. With so much love expressed so beautifully in the first half of the book, we instinctively fear what is to come, as if all that light cast shadows across our path. Though the death of a loved partner – also a poet – is deeply personal, these passionate poems open out and touch us with a consoling grief.’ – Paul Kane
‘”Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains the white radiance of eternity.” Percy Bysshe Shelley. From the first poem that speaks of the ‘delicate prints of oystercatchers’ to the comfort of a ragged dressing gown, the protective love of the kahu-feather cloak and the ‘butcher-bird that perches very close’, Pip, as a poet and wordsmith transports us into an experience that shines multicoloured with the beauty of a stained-glass window. Each poem is a facet that adds to the mosaic, each poem a gentle play of light, illuminating page by page. For those of us who know life is a gift and are called to the hard work of hope, The Climb Back is invaluable.’ – Colleen Keating
‘Poignant, sensual, spiritual, sorrowful, and funny, Pip Griffin’s latest poetry collection The Climb Back encompasses a life richly lived. What is not to admire about a poet who can write lines as diverse as ‘the shags open their sodden wings like flashers’ raincoats’ and ‘cherry trees in blossom line the streets like flower girls at a wedding’. This book is a hymn to New Zealand, Pip’s homeland, and a celebration of its landscape, wildlife and the Maori language. But even above this, it is a memorial to Ted, her friend, lover and fellow poet. If he were still here, I’d be clinking my glass with his, to celebrate her achievement.’ – Mark Mahemoff
978 1 76109 191 9, 92pp

Versions

Paperback

9781761091919
$22.50

https://www.ginninderrapress.com.au/store.php?product/page/2356/Pip+Griffin+/+The+Climb+Back

Shared Footprints by Michael and Colleen Keating

colleen Grandchildren, Poetry, Poetry Collection now available , , , , , , ,

 

Shared Footprints  is a Picaro Poets chap book perfect for your pocket when out on a walk or perched on an outcrop of rock overlooking the ocean.   Order it through Ginninderra Press .

Over the past two years Michael and I have done a seasonal beach walk each season from  Tuggerah Lake,  The Entrance Beach around the headland to Blue Bay,  around the rock platform to Toowoon Bay and along the beach  for a Cafe breakfast  at Toowoon Bay Life Savers Club and then  we walk back .

We walk quietly with notepad and pen and jot down what we observe.  Over the years we have put our thoughts down  side by side in response to the beach,  the seasons and each other.  We put this manuscript to Brenda Eldridge from Ginninderra Press as a possible Picaro Poets Chap book. It was accepte,   formatted and published. It is  for people to enjoy nature hoping to stimulate deeper awareness in us all.

Available now from www.ginninderrapress.com.au  /picaro poets and scroll down to our name.

It is divided into four sections

Spring: New Beginnings
Summer: Under a Melting Sun
Autumn : Tumble of Ocean
Winter: Our Shadows Long

Just a few examples

sea pattern
periwinkle meander
in the interidal zone   MK

 

 

 

we quicken pace
as wind leans in
hand warm together  CK

 

DEDICATION

for our grandchildren, our little castle builders, channel diggers, treasure collectors

may they all be star throwers.

The Star Thrower*

  One dawn, a man was walking along the shore.

   he noticed a young person reaching down to the sand, 

   picking up something 

  and very gently throwing it back into the sea. 

As he got closer, he called out, 

“Good morning! What are you doing?”

 The young person paused, looked up and replied, 

“Throwing starfish into the sea.”

“Why are you throwing starfish into the sea?” he asked.

“The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in they’ll die.” 

“But, don’t you realise that there are miles of beach here 

 and starfish all along it. How can you possibly make a difference?”

The young person listened politely. 

Then knelt down, picked up another starfish 

and threw it  safely into the sea, past the breaking waves and said…

“Made a difference to this one.”

* Loren Eiseley  (adapted)

Thank you to  Picaro Poets to Brenda Eldridge who gives such inspiration, affirmation and support

PRESS RELEASE: Hildegard of Bingen by Colleen Keating

colleen Hildegard of Bingen , , ,

It might have taken nearly 1000 years, but against all adversity
this woman claims her place in history.

 A Poetic Journey with Hildegard of Bingen . 

Marvel at her tenacity and fragility.

Feel you are present with this amazing woman’s story.

Critics acclaim:  

 ‘What an oeuvre! What a superb and elaborate work.’ 

‘Hildegard’s life sings and dances across the pages
of this engaging harmony of her works . . .’

‘The reader feels put into the landscape and ambience
of Hildegard’s medieval cloistered world’

Learn how this famous composer and musician was silenced. 

How her Abbey was forbidden to play music or sing for nearly a year.

Experience her oneness with the earth and its importance to our wellbeing

‘The earth is our mother’ she would say,
she is mother of all for in her is the seed of all’

Engage with her study of plants for health and her holistic healing.  Hear her say to you:

‘Feast your eyes on the green ,a thousands shades of green,  a healing colour,
let it heal you with its greening power, rooted in the sun. 

Encounter the  joy and pain of the deep friendships in her life. 

Capture the beauty of the Rhine Valley in all its seasons, where Hildegard lived out her 82 years.

Endure the hard times where she, as a woman of the 12th century, hits the brick walls of patriarchy, ignorance, hardship and struggles to be heard.

If you already thought you knew Hildegard you will be all the more there as she creates her life journey. 

“It is a book to slow us down, inviting us to ponder and calls us to follow Hildegard towards a growing greenness in our lives”

If you do not know Hildegard you are in for a treat.

Can be ordered through all good book stores or from the publisher 

www.ginninderrapress.com.au 

or 

Amazon Books Australia, UK, USA

Colleen Keating / Hildegard of Bingen: A poetic journey

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