Kintsugi

Description

The Japanese art of 'Kintsugi', the use of gold or other materials to repair and decorate broken pottery, provides the underlying theme of this collection. Time, memory, place and love become the agents that break, bind and repair throughout. In the first section, a series of poems about the connotations and impact of 'place' takes us to real and remembered landscapes and cities. As if to emphasise the 'kin' in 'Kintsugi', the second section explores the perspectives, stresses and occasional breakages of being a parent, a child and a partner; but reminds us, too, that these relationships offer 'new coastlines of experience'. The third section's poems meditate on objects and their meanings, including buried sculptures, junk mail catalogues, synchrotrons, bushfire memorials, school fetes, illuminated manuscripts and angels using Streetview. Praise for Kintsugi 'Highly observant in its engagement with the quotidian, richly inventive in its image-making, and powerful in its conjuring of time, Isi Unikowski's Kintsugi illuminates the sometimes-quirky intricacies of human relationships, the poignancy of memory and the value of culture. These are poems that bring into focus dynamic insights and transformations while also inviting the reader to share occasions of contemplation and joy -including the pleasures that beautifully-wrought language may provide. This book reveals heightened perceptions and a complexity born from an unflinching engagement with the real and of the 'golden joinery' that repairs and celebrates our personal histories.' - Paul Hetherington