Description
Like a traveller’s journal written in prose and poetry, Listening to the Deep Song records Anne Collins’ travels through various regions of Spain, which took place over many years. The book offers a meditation on Spain’s many-layered history and culture, reflecting on history, landscape, expressions of culture, and change. It reveals places of connection and friction within Spain and across the world; as far as Anne’s home in lutruwita-Tasmania.
The writing turns on a poetic dialogue and an embodied praxis; the latter being expressed through both Anne’s physical immersion in Spain, and her practice and knowledge of flamenco dance. The latter engages with, especially, the life and works of Federico Garcia Lorca, as well as with other poets and writers of, and about, Spain.
Listening to the Deep Song is deeply personal, yet it offers much that resonates deeply with contemporary concerns. Anne Collins’ writing is varied, thoughtful, observant, poignant and beautiful. You can read more about it, including Petrina Meldrum’s launch speech for Listening to the Deep Song, here.
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“Part travel diary, part meditation on Spain and its cultures, part poetic dialogue with the poetry of Lorca, Anne Collins’ “Listening to the Deep Song” is a beautifully written testimony to her long enthusiasm for the many sides of Spanish culture. Bringing together her training in flamenco dance, her love of Lorca’s poetry and several of her journeys through Spain, Anne Collins offers her readers a personal response to a unique blend of cultures that continues to speak to the 21st century world. Varied and many-layered, marked by close observation and thoughtful questioning, this is a delightful book.”
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Anne Collins is a writer of poetry, fiction, essays and reviews. Listening to the Deep Song is her sixth book. Her writing has been published in four previous volumes of poetry: The Language of Water, Seasoned with Honey (a four-poet anthology), The Season of Chance, and How to Belong. Another book, My Friends This Landscape, is similar to Listening to the Deep Song in that it seamlessly flows between poetry and prose forms.
Individual poems by Anne have been published in journals, newspapers and anthologies, and Anne has also collaborated with other writers, musicians and visual artists. She has been honoured with a number of awards, grants and residencies. Find out more at www.annecollins.com.au
