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| Jaydeep Sarangi |
-Reviewed by Jaydeep Sarangi
Dreamday by Amelia WalkerISBN 978-0-6481751-0-0
Publisher: Campbelltown ArtHouse, Montacute, SA,2017
Dreamday
is a poetic sequence by Amelia Walker, one of the signal poets from South
Australia, inspired by DREAMDSCAPE, a visual art exhibition at the Campbelltown
ArtHouse for SALA (the South Australian Living Artists) festival 2017.
Poetry saves a man from moments of
frustration and dejection. Mundane wishes come and go. A poet has a sensitive
heart to feel all these arrivals and departures of wishes and dreams. For Amelia Walker,
only the senses are moving among the objects of senses. Thought is a mental act. The
poet wants to sign in the dream knot of minds with a whirlpool of images of
varying nature. Human being lives with dreams, dreams for a better tomorrow.
For the poet, absences stay in the midst of dreams resulting in attitudes and actions:
“At my desk again.
Sleepwalking without walking.”
(‘Living the Dream’)
Amelia’s musings are often short, compact and witty.
There are some long poems in between. Some poems show the poet’s vast knowledge
of inner life:
“Water reflects skies, and because
skies and clouds are so much water.” (‘Dreaming a
Dream’)
Remembering to dream is very special for the poet. It
brings new idiom in our commercially profit driven culture.:
“A dream within a dream suggests worry
or distress: a subconscious distancing
Device (.)” (‘Bare’)
The sap of
psychology of the mind is her long pedigree. She goes deep into her within
through the gates of dreams. Her dream poems
significantly break free from the overwhelming compulsions that prudes and
purists of the defining routes that poetry must track to remain truly obvious.
Her journey is personal:
“I would be flying:
Free
-
My own green dragon.”
(‘Dreaming a Dream’)
Poems in this collection are not just the experiences
and realisations of life, the poet rather moves towards aesthetic celebration,
not just physical, but psychological.
The poems are to be appreciated for their rhetoric. The poet uses a variety of
linguistic devices to convey her reflections:
Let’s google what that costs
these days.” (‘Living the Dream’)
Most of his poems are collage of ideas effortlessly
streaming from lived moments of creative pulls and mind’s reflections to art.
Touching is knowing. Amelia records how touched words pulsate within her:
“(D)aylight
once more, live to dance(.)” (‘Still Falling’)
Dreamers are saviours of our
race when we are chasing after profit, delight and cheap popularity.
A collection on dream is a rare fabric these days. There is no page number in this poetic collection. Page
numbers are intruders in a world of sweet process. Amelia is a committed
artist. Her poetic lines flow like liquid on the unbound space. Adelaide- based
poet, Amelia asks, “What makes it flow so fast, that stream?” (‘Still Falling’)
This collection is a series of
dream, one leading to another. There is no interval in between like cloud after
cloud. It’s vivid dreaming. Amelia’s dream has a soul. A luminous halo of inside out in words!
Amelia is a soul maker. She is a member of Soth Australian poetry tradition. Her poems are enjoyable read!
ReplyDeleteInteresting book review by eminent poet-himself,Jaydeep Sarangi. Amelia Walker's 'Dreamday' captures all that we are made of: dreams. Looking forward for this book read.
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