Picture This – Naomi Woddis ‘How Light Falls’

Many superlative writers responded to a portfolio of my photography for a project called Picture This. I also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Below is my contribution. At first I was reluctant to write a poem and, to be honest, the poem came before the photograph but I hope that the glaring sky with its scudding clouds is an apt partnering for my words.

How Light Falls

In between the spaces, more spaces. How light falls here. But not here. And how shadows have their own words for things even time cannot explain -

Here it ends. Here it begins again. Here it ends. And so on.

We can learn a lot from the language of light. Or those so ill they cannot recall anything other than this, and what breath and blinking means to those who cannot even carry air in their palms.

The cry of coupling foxes sounds worse to me than it does for them, or a cat wanting breakfast. Even the gulls cry is misleading.

Like all the photographs ever taken what looks like an edge, a beginning, a story is nothing more than a wish for something that has passed.

We cannot hold on to much anyway. I learnt this late on in the day.

What sounds like a shout could be a victory, the yell of defeat, or nothing at all.

Light falls here, and here. Darkness, shadow. Everything the air touches is right and true.

Picture This - Ingrid Andrew 'Cusp'

Many exceptional writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Ingrid Andrew is a multi-talented artist. Her poem below is a delicate and beautifully observed narrative of seasonal change.

Ingrid is an artist, poet and singer songwriter living in London.

Cusp

Yesterday; morning.

From leaden skies; a flurry of snow flakes that do not settle.

The cold creeps up our sleeves.

By afternoon; a blue and silver sky, with ice white clouds.

That evening, walking home, the snow is sprouting crystalline from the pavements, thickening on car bonnets and windows.

The little, beloved tree at the rise of our road, is frosted coral.

This morning back garden fences alight with lichen green; February trees conduct sunshine along their still branches.

A blackbird and a jay sit companionably together;

survey the scene.

Picture This - Pauline Sewards 'Hinge'

Many superlative writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. The original premise of this project was to look at both intimate detail and repetition. I must admit to being a little excited that today's photograph also inspired a poem earlier in the project. Pauline Sewards' piece marries with the image perfectly, even its structure mirrors the simple geometry of door, hinge, wood and brick.

Pauline lives and works in London.

hinge

eyes closed finger tips listen smooth caramel of old wood fine smoke splinter free a made world, measured lick of a sharp pencil tools fitted to curved palms ruminations of bees and thunder sharp light whistle of silence opening

Picture This - Donall Dempsey 'Ivy'

Many magnificent writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Dónall Dempsey is a marvellous writer and performer. He has that rare skill of summoning up deep feelings in his audience as well as injecting his work with much needed humour. His haiku below is a perfect match for the photo, I will never look at the ivy in my garden the same way again !

Ivy

Jailbreak! Ivy caught in the spotlight attempts to scale the wall.

Picture This - Dorothy Fryd 'Pots'

Many talented writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Dorothy Fryd's poetry is spectacular and original. She's the sort of writer that introduces me to seeing the world in a whole new way with every word she writes. Not least in the poem below which is rich with an alerting juxtaposition of images.

Dorothy works for the School of English at Kent University as a Creative Writing Lecturer. Her poetry and fiction has been published in Magazines, Anthologies and Competitions such as The Rialto, BRAND Literary Magazine, Forward Press, Momaya Press, Educating Kenyan Orphans, WordAid (Children in Need Anthology) and Spilling Ink Review.

Pots

For now they stay furled, unfixed. before blossom ready for tricky, unstable youth;

which axil, which bulb, which culture.

This is small reincarnation; young solicitors, young whorling snippings, weathered by recycled motes

flying off / falling in.

They sleep in their elders' beds; so long ago bloomed, like dead saints or dead planets,

whimpered out.

Picture This - Janice Windle 'Nail'

Some stunning writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Janice Windle's work as an artist floods through her poetry. Her poem below is a beautiful response to my photograph and captures much of what I was feeling when I took it.

Janice is a poet, painter and art teacher. She lives in Guildford, with her partner Dónall Dempsey. Janice has had poems published in several anthologies, most recently in “Cancan” by Wurm in Apfel and “Census 3” by Seven Towers.

Nail

Free falling caught in the act my sundial shadow at my feet I have suffered blows

my pirouetting days are behind me I bend my head towards earth where I came from

longing to swing up again to gaze at stars.

Picture This - Agnes Meadows 'Thaw'

Some fantastic writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Agnes Meadows is a gifted and prolific writer. She also runs a great monthly event for women writers of all genres, Loose Muse. I'm really excited about her heavily gothic contribution to the project.

Agnes has written five books of poetry – You and Me, Quantum Love, Woman, At Damascus Gate on Good Friday and This One Is For You. She is currently writing a novel set in 12th century Constantinople with a woman soldier as the central character. Thaw

In moments of transformation, the process of change brings a burden of misery I cannot control. My shoulder blades are knived by the black burst of feathers, the prickle of subcutaneous wings ready to emerge. And where my mouth was, replete with words half-formed for song or velvet metaphor, now I am beak-pierced, my tongue sharp as thorns or holly spike.

My arms have disappeared entirely, merged in the sleek gloss of raven plumage, legs grown crow-thin, toes a trident of talons shadowing your booted footsteps with avian shrewdness. These petrel eyes gleam in carrion hunger, my gorge rapacious for the weight of gristle and sinew.

It is worse in winter when the ground is white and the days are short and sunless. So little time to feed, I am undone by your warm breath, the smell of you coiling in heavy folds across my breast and shank, your blood a graying broth that boils in your veins, thin filaments of deceit.

You do not see me hidden in the leafless trees, are deaf to my shriek of triumph as I swoop, wings stretched, glide and settle on your shoulders, begin my rapier encroachment of your soft neck to reach the core of living brain within. dawn melts my tracks in the snow, a proof of terror, a thaw of mutating species, bird to man come daylight.

Picture This - Sarah Butler 'January Morning'

Some exceptional writers have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. Sarh Butler's writing has an immediacy to it that works perfectly with photography. In the thoughtful piece below she captures the sense of isolation that was my impetus for taking the picture.

Sarah writes novels and short fiction, and has a particular interest in the relationship between writing and place. Her debut novel, Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love, will be published by Picador in February 2013.

January Morning

He might have opened the French doors for a breath of January air, to clear the room of last night’s red-wine-cigarette-fog, but she knew he’d gone. There was no point in following, but she stepped out, across the moss-stained patio, onto frosted-grass that gave up its sugar-coating to the warmth of her bare feet. The soil beneath though, that stayed hard and unforgiving. There was no point in looking, but she looked anyway, and when her feet were so cold she had to retreat, she sat by the window and watched the garden – splintered into pixels by her tears.

Picture This - Steve Tasane 'The Purring'

Some wonderful poets have responded to a portfolio of my recent photography for a project called Picture This. I am overwhelmed by the beautiful work I've received. I have also worked with photographer and film-maker Craig Thomas, on a short film entitled Still Life, containing a selection of these images. I was very happy when Steve Tasane wanted to take part in the project, especially as his poem is inspired by a picture of our cat, Happy Meal. Living as he does with two photographers our cat knows his best side and is very happy in front of the lens. The poem below really captures something of that 'cat nature' I have only really fully appreciated since becoming ill.

Steve is Writer-in-residence for Dickens 2012, and his young adult novel Blood Donors is to be published by Walker Books in 2013. He is the master of tongue-twisting poetry with a sharp political edge.

The Purring

The Life Shadow crouches at the corner of a blank page.

A white void waits while the blackness watches – twitches, flexes – a stillness keening to spring

into the scent, the cloud-carried rumour, the rustle, a breeze, a cottoning on.

The Black Cat blinks a green eye, swishes her impatience and at once her poetry is.

Picture This - Jocelyn Page 'Shadows Point East'

During my recent spell of ill health I assembled a portfolio of photographs, Still Life. I invited some high calibre poets to respond to these photographs for a project called Picture This. I have been overwhelmed by the beautiful work I have received. I also worked with photographer and film-maker, Craig Thomas, on a short film containing a selection of these images which you can enjoy below. I feel very lucky to know poet Jocelyn Page. I was overjoyed when she chose one of my more abstract photos to inspire her poem here. Her poetry quietly and confidently beckons me in, then wakes me up to seeing the world in a whole new light.

Jocelyn Page is an American poet living in South East London. Her pamphlet smithereens was published by the tall-lighthouse in 2010. She teaches at Goldsmiths College where she is working toward a PhD on the topics of inspiration and collaboration.

Shadows Point East By the time we get to camp and our unpacking, line setting horse staking, fast eating, fireside click-clacking is through - I finally get to the words, blazed in charred shadows in my head, by then the opposite of their brilliance, like the noon sun stamps itself in the deepest black on the backs of the eyes. So nothing I write tonight, dear, will come anywhere near the idea that I had, that I had to tell you this afternoon, out stalking the west.

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