Steady - Anne Whitehouse

The poems in Steady are narratives, persona poems and portraits, and lyrics. In writing them, I have tried to hold steady, so steadiness might connect them like a bridge. Steadiness is a quality most appreciated in old age when it becomes more elusive. My narrative poems about Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Lee Miller, Iris Origo, Ruth Asawa, and Imogen Cunningham are the result of years of engagement with their lives and their works. The separate events of "An Art Story" coalesced into a narrative with overlapping voices. Ideas may come from my own backyard or half a world away; from snatches of stories recounted, read, or observed; people known or glimpsed in passing; events of the past resurfacing into the present. I continue to find inspiration in cycles of the seasons; the lives of plants and animals; our beloved, fragile earth. The arrow of time moves in one direction. Poetry finds in the music of words and shaded meanings a space for contemplation, with windows and mirrors looking outward and inward, inviting us back.