Making Lists for Frances Hodgkins

Inspired by an invitation to a recent exhibition of Frances Hodgkins' paintings, this poetic memoir written "in the light of art" opens with a selection of poems that focus on eight of Frances Hodgkins' works, listing their impacts and delights. The following chapter includes a number of lyrical autobiographical poems about the role art has played in the poet's life. In the third section, art and poetry intermingle in the works of some favorite artistssuch as Jenny Bornholdt, Sophie Calle, and Deborah Smithand also in the context of a recent illness. Finally, a long letter-poem to Hawaii-based writer Anne Kennedy ties the main themes together.

Paula Green was the 2005 Writer in Residence at the University of Auckland, where she has taught creative writing, film studies, and Italian literature. Her previous books include Chrome, Cookhouse, and Crosswind, and her most recent, Flamingo Bendalingo: Poems from the Zoo, is a project that featured her own poems and those of 50 children from a local primary school.