In/Out (for Joanna), by Cilla McQueen
On my wall, beside her painting from Barry’s Bay,
is pinned the image of Joanna with young Magdalena on her knee.
She looks out beyond the surface of the photograph;
Magdalena straight into the lens, gripping a silver rattle.
The light in their eyes falls perhaps from a window,
piercing a shadowy house.
‘When is your birthday please JUMP Saturday Sunday Monday in/out’
within a frame of words that mark time passing
she paints a garden where a napkin on the washing line
makes a white space among shapes and colours
a place for contemplation.
Light burns sensitised material to filigree
of presence and absence, space and texture, detail.
Light brushes a cheek, a lip, the orb of an eye,
a gleam of mystery in a baby’s hand.
When the Foveaux Express comes in, I see Joanna’s red coat.
Pascal is drenched from crossing the strait on the foredeck,
wind-whipped spray in his face, his eyes full of birds.
It might be a crossing of years from which she steps ashore to greet me,
diffidently offering new drawings, a pot of honey from the bush.
Cilla McQueen
Joanna Paul (1945–2003) was a New Zealand visual artist, poet and film-maker. Her connections to Spiral are outlined here — her strong contribution to the development of the New Zealand women’s art movement through early and influential membership of the Christchurch Women Artists Group; and here, about her project A Season’s Diaries (1977).
Cilla McQueen was New Zealand’s poet laureate from 2009–2011. Amongst her many awards, she has an Hon. Litt D. from the University of Otago and has won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry three times.
Cilla is also a visual artist and — like Joanna — a contributor to A Women’s Picture Book: 25 Women Artists of Aotearoa New Zealand (1988). In 2015, the Hocken Library at the University of Otago brought together her work with Joanna’s, in Picture/Poem: the Imagery of Cilla McQueen & Joanna Paul.
Cilla’s latest publication is in a slant light: a poet’s memoir (2016); the cover drawing is hers.
