Ankh Spice : part three

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

There are poems (and collections) I read over and over again. Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s ‘Song’, Glenn Colquhoun’s ‘The Art of Walking Upright’. I’m fortunate to own multiple collections from Linda Pastan, Joy Harjo, Wislawa Szymborska, Hone Tūwhare, and a riffle through any one of them will often land me right where I need to be in that moment. Aside from poetry, I’m a lifelong fan of Sir Terry Pratchett, and I read his books over and over again – they feel like being welcomed home, every time, to a home you needed but weren’t lucky enough to have. His book Nation, along with Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, are two of my favourites, I’ve read them each at least twenty times - for the depth of the human condition they contain and the very wry, very real and tender way they hold this weird living thing we’re all doing in hands full of mourning/rage/humour/respect/wonder – much the same way my favourite poems do. And when I can’t decide if I need poetry or prose or reality laid bare, Robert Macfarlane’s Underland is all three, beautifully woven into something as close to magic as any writer could ever touch.