Category Archives: Postcards 2023

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Breathe

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I heard the poem Breathe while in a car, wending my way through traffic. The words were clear and simple, the final image being of the respite found in a forest where the trees pass no judgement, allowing one simply to ‘be’, free from the stresses of expectation.

Here is the final verse of the poem – best read slowly:

” … and she sat there for hours
not wanting to leave
for the forest said nothing …
it just let her breathe”

Becky Hemsley

Later I looked up the poem and its author. It has been written by Becky Hemsley, and is part of a poetry collection of hers called Talking to the Wild. The second poem that I heard her read was called Like a Girl. Both poems were lovely to hear. They sounded like wind chimes of hope above the dark dark news of conflict that flared up later on the news.

(My thanks to Becky for allowing me to use the final verse of her poem in this post)

Here she is reading Like a Girl

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Thinking about architecture

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Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about buildings, thanks to a programme I heard discussing the idea that architecture has lost its soul.

The issue made me take a closer look at this sculpture near St Mary’s Axe in the City in London. From a distance it looks like a cartoon reproduction of an old building, planted deliberately amongst the new skyscrapers in the area.

The sight of this coloured version, so different yet so familiar, balancing awkwardly on its pedestals, has cheered me up whenever I’ve seen it. I suppose I might be responding to its soul, and that, according to the plaque beside it, is what the artist wants us to do. The title of the piece is The Granary and its creator, Jesse Pollock, is from Kent, where old granary stores can still be found. With this version Pollock is asking us to recognise that although it looks rosy, its battered profile is to give an idea of how tough its life is, facing one crisis after the next.

“… The Granary speaks as much to a need to overcome these crises as it does to the vexed rhetoric that underpins established visions of the nation, its heritage and our place within it.”

Reading these words has added another layer to my looking. From now on I shall think of it as the battered red heart powering the steely-faced, glassy-eyed buildings that surround it, yet do not notice it.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Last Stop on Market Street

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Here is another picture book that I’ve enjoyed. I only discovered this one today when it was picked out of a pile by a young girl I was reading with.

The story is simple. It is about a child’s route home with his grandmother after school. He wishes he could drive away in a car like his friend Colby, but his grandmother insists the bus will be fine. And it is. On the journey he meets the people from his community, and sees how his grandmother interacts with them, gently showing him how much he can learn and enjoy from their company. Their bus journey ends at the last stop on Market Street, which is in a raggedy neighbourhood. The boy is a little unnerved as they make they way through it to the soup kitchen, where his grandmother is soon serving the others.

It is a quiet book with strong themes that don’t dominate the story too much. Instead they are woven cleverly into the words or picked up by the pictures in such a way that they let the journey take us to the end of the book. I thought it was such a powerful combination. The text is by Matt de la Peña, and the pictures by Christian Robinson.

When the young girl and I reached the end of the book I flipped to the back cover and saw that it had a small picture at the top with the words “Gold Medal Selection – Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library”. I was so excited to read this, as I’d heard often about the free books delivered to children from Dolly Parton, and here in my hands, was one of them.

These are some of the words on that back cover, describing her hopes for the books:

“… Dolly understands that reading is the key to a strong education, and that a child’s imagination is the centre of his/her dreams and creativity. By combining the two, this programme inspires children to dream more, learn more, care more, and be more …”

I thought this book did all of that.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023