{"id":4069,"date":"2020-11-13T10:17:41","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T23:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=4069"},"modified":"2022-11-10T16:43:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T06:13:29","slug":"poetry-spotlight-blessing-helen-parsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2020\/11\/poetry-spotlight-blessing-helen-parsons\/","title":{"rendered":"POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Blessing’ by Helen Parsons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Feeling<\/p>\n

This week, we shine the poetry spotlight on Helen Parsons’ new collection,\u00a0The Feeling of Bigness: Encountering Georgia O’Keeffe<\/a><\/em>. The sonnets in the collection draw inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe’s art and life, and her love for the big open spaces \u2013 the ‘feeling of bigness’ \u2013 that New Mexico offered her.<\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

Post written by Maddy Sexton<\/pre>\n
Earlier this week, we welcomed to the warehouse the first boxes of Helen Parsons’ new poetry collection,\u00a0The Feeling of Bigness<\/em>. It’s a delicate little book of sonnets\u00a0inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe and her ‘determination to be independent and to speak her truth in her art’.<\/p>\n
Sonnets of course remind me of high school English, poring over Shakespeare’s words in class and imagining someone writing a sonnet for me. In my defence, we had just watched 2005’s\u00a0Pride and Prejudice<\/em>; ‘Can I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ was more than my romantic teenage heart could bear.<\/p>\n
A collection of sonnets, then, is exactly what my teenage self would have loved. Nice to find out, when flicking through the pages, that I still love sonnets now.<\/p>\n
\"'Snow'<\/a><\/p>\n
Helen’s preface really beautifully sums up to me the way that art can have such a profound effect on us that we feel compelled to replicate it: to make it a part of ourselves.<\/p>\n
\n
Poems grew out of my reflections on Georgia\u2019s art and life, and on the ways her art and her story resonated with my own experiences. The poems turned into sonnets. The accumulation turned into a sequence. Here they are.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n
To me,\u00a0the ‘feeling of bigness’\u00a0represents the feeling of freedom \u2013 wide open spaces to spread oneself over and into. It really speaks to me, and I can see how it spoke to Helen as well.<\/p>\n
The title comes from a letter O’Keeffe wrote to Alfred Stieglitz on 4 September 1916:<\/p>\n
\n
\u2018a week ago it was the mountains that I thought the most wonderful \u2013 and today it\u2019s the plains \u2013 I guess it\u2019s the feeling of bigness in both that just carries me away \u2026\u2019<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The poem of the week carries me away, just as the mountains and the plains did for Georgia all those years ago.<\/p>\n
Blessing<\/h1>\n
\"'Blessing',<\/a><\/p>\n
I can’t describe why I love this so much. Perhaps it’s the empty space that the orchestra leaves for the cello to play before it rejoins. The gift, grace and benediction of art, and sharing art with others fills me with a strange feeling. The feeling of bigness, perhaps?<\/p>\n
The book launches next week, at an invite-only event\u00a0on my birthday! I’m so pleased to share a celebration with this beautiful book.<\/p>\n
Support Wakefield Press by buying our beautiful books!\u00a0\u00a0Visit our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0or contact us on 08 8352 4455 for more information, or to purchase a book (or three!).\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>We can post your purchase to your doorstep!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week, we shine the poetry spotlight on Helen Parsons’ new collection,\u00a0The Feeling of Bigness: Encountering Georgia O’Keeffe. The sonnets in the collection draw inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe’s art and life, and her love for the big open spaces \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[792,80,315,855,8],"tags":[864,856,46,861,862,858,859],"class_list":["post-4069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australian","category-for-fun","category-poetry-2","category-poetry-spotlight","category-we-love-books","tag-australian-poetry","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-by-women","tag-poetry-spotlight","tag-poets","tag-women-poets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-13D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4069"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5221,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions\/5221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}