‘This collaboration between an artist and a poet, both raised near Wellington, is another beautiful hardcover book from Massey University
Press, in a cute and compact ‘‘poetry book’’ size. Catherine Bagnall’s dreamy, exquisitely coloured watercolours drift layers of meaning in the gauzy colours of summer leaves, spring greens and indigo skies through Jane Sayle’s interleaved lines: On we go Empty suitcase made of leaves and a stomach light as air just to walk up in the sky talking with you
There is something so alive about Sayle’s metaphors — the ‘‘empty suitcase made of leaves,’’ the ‘‘rabbit under the pillow/birds in the bed’’, ‘‘an ember-winged monarch/breathes in and out/the shadow of daylight’’ a spirit which sneaks through, over and under Bagnall’s paintings of human forms transformed by mischievous animal cloaks.’
Jenny Nicholls, Waiheke Weekender, 15 April 2021. More about the Waiheke Weekender here.
