Oh Light Edited by Anna Gilkison (Disability, Spirituality & Faith Network, 2008) $22.50 plus postage direct from publisher www.dsfnetwork.org ISBN 978-1-877192-37-1

Peter Rawnsley

Oh Light is a collection, of quotations, poems, short reflections, stories, often accompanied by images. The material is organised into six thematic sections. The production of this compact book (about 16 cm square and 129 pp) is superb and would grace any coffee table. But the book is far more than polished, instantly inspiring text and pictures. Its special feature is to draw the reader through the great wisdom tradition, from writers remote in space and time (for example Job), to Aotearoa, New Zealand and to the experience of specific New Zealand writers/artists living with disability.

I carry it with me
like a handbag

.   .   . 

A handbag
I never lose
and never replace.

The poetry is often sparse (short-lined). Often good use is made of parallelism or repetitive patterns building through successive lines to a cumulative effect:

I begin to stand up tall and no longer stooped.
I begin to look outward rather than inwards.
I begin to notice and to care for, and about others.

.   .   .  

Interestingly, the editor has included what I call "antipoetry." This is a straight prose statement with no poetic device and yet paradoxically, solely because of its context, it is arguably poetry!:

Recently the adult ‘normals', chiefly male, who make such decisions for the United nations have decreed that each three hundred and sixty-five days we live be dedicated to one or another of the sub-groups in society   .   .   .   We have had in succession, therefore, the Year of the Woman, the year of the Child and finally, the Year of the Disabled.

My personal "test" for poetry is how effectively does something of it, for example an image, a sudden turn or insight, stay with me and surface perhaps weeks or months later. On that criteria the book has stood up well. Although I did not find it particularly striking on first read, the eponymous Hoiho (penguin) kept coming back to me over weeks:

sat by him humming
running
your hand
over his white chest
as we

would all love to do

This is also a poem where the artwork and text amplify each other.

There are many exact, powerful and pointed words or phrases in this collection for example "cute pins" in:

Where are the angels you promised you would give charge over us?
Instead of cute pins on our shoulders
we want angels of mercy.

Indeed, there is a very wide range of style and material in the text and artwork. Somehow the organisation and editing has pulled it together .

I recommend this book but with a caveat. It is slow text, slow images, slow poetry. That is like slow food and it needs to be digested slowly. Taken as wisdom literature it does not offer answers so much as pose questions. If taken seriously those questions can be difficult. The words and images are an invitation to enter the writers' and artists' space and simultaneously the space of one's own life. It is an invitation to enter that space and sit with the questions - not to get an answer or make a judgement but to experience a transformation.

 

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