Reviews

Click on this link to read June’s Aftermath Blogs

Hi June, and thanks for this post, it raises something that I’ve thought about a lot – why is it that we are so reluctant to accept help?

It can be really confronting to accept the help of others, but we all know how great it feels to help someone who’s in need. It seems to me that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is to let people know how we’re going and allow other people to help us – although you’re right, it can be very hard to do for lots of different reasons, and equally uncomfortable to offer help, even when we really want to. You’ve opened up a big topic here June! Thanks for sharing your story.

-Cath Dwyer, Producer on ‘Ute Angels’ Aftermath ABC open guest blog.

Go June! You’re a wonderful writer and storyteller. Your energy motivates and inspires me in my work and I really appreciate how much attention you pay to every detail of the Aftermath project. Thank you!

Miranda, ABCopen Producer

Very insightful and touching June. Thanks for sharing some of the complex and contradictory feelings you and your family experienced. Angels in shorts and T-shirts… love it!

-Shelley, Cairns. on ‘Ute Angels’

June, I can feel the joy coming through the screen, you must have all loved this creative experience! Thank you for this post

- Monica, Soul Food Blogger

Maintaining the creative impulse most certainly helps us survive the worst of events. This is an inspirational post June.

– Heather Blakey on ‘Hope Roof’ Aftermath ABC open.

A beautiful article, June, you really do get to the “heart” of the matter and you’re blessed to live in such a caring community. After hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans people went in and restored family photographs for some of the inhabitants who had lost everything. It was poignant and heartwarming to see the looks on their faces as they were given back just a bit of their past. It’s so good to read a positive story about decent people. Keep up the great work!

-Porch Sitter, Soul Food Blogger, on ‘Heart Strands Hidden in the Cassowary Coast’ Aftermath ABC open.

Thank you for this wonderful insight into the strength and struggles of people recovering from Yasi. And so beautifully written! I look forward to reading more of ‘Aftermath’.

-Meg, Book Creator’s Circle and Junk Wave, on ‘Tupperware Houses’ Aftermath ABC open.

June, I’m so pleased you’re working on a series of articles about Yasi. This is a worldwide experience and your insights will bring knowledge to folks who don’t live in cyclone or hurricane zones, as well as comfort and hope to those who’ve experienced the fear and damage. I’ll be looking forward to your next article.

-Barbara Banta on ‘Tupperware Houses’ Aftermath, ABC Open.

Your commitment to documenting the aftermath of Yasi is remarkable. Through your words and images we can gain an understanding the struggles, recovery and resilience, both personally and in your community. With so many natural disasters are happening…I believe our mother earth may be vying for our attention. Thank you June for teaching and showing us how to work and heal together.

-Jani , Photo Journalist and activist, United States, on ‘Tupperware Houses’ Aftermath, ABC Open

You’ve picked a wonderful writer to do these posts. Not only did she experience it all but she writes with heart!

-Tammy (Agrigirl) United States, on ‘Tupperware Houses’ Aftermath, ABC Open

I can’t stop reading your blog June … you have such a talent .. and a beautiful soul. I’m hooked! It’s like being a kid in a candy store but with a sense of calm. Cx

-Carolyn Bofinger, Teacher and photographer, on ‘Pearlz Dreaming’ blog

Your writing is so beautiful, it comes from the heart and gives comfort to the reader. I wish that everyone in the whole world could read and absorb your written thoughts, and look at and into your amazing images, especially during this season of so many natural disasters. Thank you for sharing your thoughts from the heart.

-Vi, on ‘Pearlz Dreaming’ post.

June – Your touching story of Yasi and the five guitars struck a chord with me. Easy access to good music is high on my list of requirements for quality of life. For the past 30 years or so ABC Classical FM has been a constant in my life at home. I had an aerial attached to the roof to achieve decent reception. Yasi twisted and tossed that aerial to the ground. Late yesterday it was replaced. Today I find myself smiling broadly to the music as I perform the routine tasks.

-Pam Galeano, Children’s Author, on ‘Legend of Five Guitars’, Aftermath, ABC Open.

What a wonderful story June and what inspiration for your children I remember Phil Emmanuel from early Goldrush days and sounds like he is still that genuinely lovely talented human being!

Dijanne, on ‘Legend of Five Guitars’, Aftermath, ABC Open.

This is one post that I wish all people of the world could read, June. There are people like you described that react the same whether it be a cyclone or someone going through infertility. Some of it hurts and is now helpful while some you just want everyone to know how helpful they are. I like the silent angels myself. They do what they do from their hearts without any ulterior motives.

After 911 there were so many in the US who bonded…whether out of fear or whatever. But there were also those who decided to chalk their problems up to anyone Muslim. Our neighbor was Muslim. He hung a flag outside and we neighbours were ready to defend his life if it came to that. The sad thing is that when all is well and done, those that weren’t personally touched by the tragedy (and some who were) have forgotten.

You, my dear June, are an angel. Your intentions are true and heartfelt. I have shared your posts with friends and they were so happy to hear about the cyclone and after effects first hand. Thank you from all of us for sharing your story. It helps us remember that no matter which country we live, we are all the same.

-Sally, on ‘Ute, towel and washing, Angels and; the dark side of cyclones’, Pearlz Dreaming post.

This is so beautiful and so true, June. I loved reading it; it gave me peace and hope. I love heavy metal music, and I love the moments of quiet the musicians offer, like Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters. It is kind of an anthem for me, as I think of my family.
To you and yours, hope and beauty in abundance.

-Gail ‘Angels, Blessings, Sunlight and the Aerodynamics of Optimism’ in ‘Pearlz Dreaming’ post.

Lovely report June. I think the people of Tully can be pleased with their roving reporter

-Paulien Bats on ‘on ‘A Prince, Cassowary Gift and Handshakes of Optimism’ – Facebook post/Pearlz Dreaming post.

What a beautiful account. Thanks so much, June. I saw you on SBS news briefly. So excited! What a bright hot day, though. Glad there was ice-cream!

- Jo Grimmer- on ‘A Prince, Cassowary Gift and Handshakes of Optimism’ – Facebook post/Pearlz Dreaming post.

I see you writing a syndicated column or something that a number of newspapers (or their on-line equivalents!)

-Paul Gerard, on ‘A Prince, Cassowary Gift and Handshakes of Optimism’ – Facebook post/Pearlz Dreaming post.

Great piece of writing & pics to go with it – can feel the warmth!!

-Noel Broomhall, on ‘A Prince, Cassowary Gift and Handshakes of Optimism’ – Facebook post/Pearlz Dreaming post.

Your words touch my heart. Yesterday a friend taught me a new word “weltschmerz”. It’s a German word that means world sadness. I hear it in your poem. Thank you for expressing it so beautifully.

-Suzanne on ‘Moving beyond the wounds’ Pearlz Dreaming post.

It’s great to have such a strong group of contributors who are so willing to share their experiences with the rest of the country.

Sonya Gee, ABC open producer on Aftermath bloggers on Aftermath ABC open.

You are . . . a tower of wisdom. You have taken from the destruction of a storm the gifts it had to offer, and there were gifts, so well hidden that only a chosen few would discover them. Thank you for this speaking to me/to us from your soul. I was spell bound by your words and the depth of vision they presented.

-Vi on ‘Farewells, meeting old age, lessons of a quail and the wayland song…’ on Pearlz Dreaming post.

Great post June … blogging is a fantastic tool to just document life and love and everything that encompasses it. I’d like to think someone, somewhere got something out of each post I write but in the end, I know that I definitely do in writing each one, so that is what counts. Your posts are always so insightful and inspiring. Your storytelling, brilliant. ABC open is so amazing in being people together and providing opportunities for real people to tell real stories. Well done gorgeous. I’ll always enjoy reading your words. Always. Cx

–Carolyn Bofinger, Photographer and Blogger

To read the work commented on here click on this link Discovering

Wow! June this is fantastic! What amazing work from both you and Sheridan.

On Discovering, Stephanie, Artist, On Discovering, curator Ontario

Thank you June for this beautiful and generous gift. Will share it with my contacts.

- On Discovering, Joanna, Writer, Australia

Staggeringly beautiful June … such wonderful, wonderful work … thank
you for sharing with us.

- On Discovering, Jill, Textile Artist, United Kingdom

I am at a loss for words. Your images are so beautiful they bring tears to my eyes. It is obvious that you are one with the world that you photograph and write about. Your vision comes from your heart and even deeper than that, your soul. Thank you for sharing your work with us.

I really liked “Palm Fronds”…that was at the beginning. “Fireside Dreams” was so thought provoking and was probably my favorite. But then there was “Mirroring” it represented such delicacy and “Being Birdsong” was really beautiful.

-On Discovering, Vi, Poet, student of digital arts, Arizona

I love the e-book. Wonderful poems and pictures. Lovely!

-Jane Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, USA

Beautiful production in total. Wonderful to realize people in Australia share similar values.. Professor Arnold’s insight linking USA’s Rachel Carson and Jeffers from the turn of the century to 1960’s confirms a continuing value.. June’s photographic work and poems are exquisite. On Discovering, J Webb, medical professions, Sacramento, California

Stunning presentation. Shows nature is powerful. Reminds me of the fires here and how we became strugglers and then gained respect for the power of earthquakes and fires. Also, every parent, school, church that works with children would benefit from this e-book. Parents being there as children learn and then the child’s work is outstanding as well. A different world, different perspective, shared values.

- On Discovering Rachel, nurse, Chico, California

Exquisite work – great presentation. Have looked at it several times. Shared with colleagues. Very special.

- On Discovering, Marian, artist, Indianapolis, USA

Your presentation was exceptional, inspirational.

-Letizia de Roza, Book Creator’s Circle, on Talk to BCC.

On Video Storytelling

Great record of the good work of good people in great communities. And well done June with the video making – I am curating the ABC Open “Aftermath” content that you contributed this video to and I have watched you just get better and better. abc.net.au/open —ABC Open North Coast NSW, On Back on Track video

Wonderful video June! So good to see people working toward making a better world! ~YES~ pass it on!!!~ Sending Love and Good vibes from California…

Jani Murphy, Photographer and Photojournalist, On Operation Angel documentary

Wow! What a touching blog and video. I can see in the video footage how moved Jacqueline also was by being welcomed by you all up in Queensland recently. I am proud to be part of the Operation Angel team with Jacqueline and the amazing people in VIC who have impacted on the community’s lives after the floods and cyclones earlier this year. We cared enough to help, we were driven to help, and so much support came from our social communities online and contacts who mobilised immediately when we called out for tools, undies, mozzie nets, the lot. Helping our fellow queenslanders was a pleasure because people wanted to give more, and more, and more. I have such faith in the human spirit. Thank you for being strong and getting through this!

—Sarah Allen – social media outreach for Operation Angel – On Operation Angel documentary

That’s really inspiring. Well done. Great combo of stills and video interviews. Good overall shaping and editing from beginning to the end. The music goes well with the stills and the background video etc.—austories on Operation Angel documentary

Mentoring

June has been a mentor,teacher and inspiration to many of us post cyclone Yasi down here in the Tully, Mission Beach El Arish, Silkwood Kurramine areas, encouraging us to write to heal the shock, giving us openings to share the stories with others and in her unique way being just a good friend. All the writers in our area are now under one umbrella. It’s evolving into Licuala WinQ.

from Kate Campbell-Lloyd

 

WORKS REFERRED TO

June’s Aftermath Blogs

Discovering

ABC radio cover my video blogging

Song Trails in the Cassowary Coast Part 2: Making A Song

Hoping to hear from all the songtrailers out there continuing their song-writing journeys!

This article has been published in the Critical Mass Blog.

Please leave comments on that blog, as well as here.   I am sure Queensland Music Festival and Tutors want to know what you thought of the workshops if you were there.

Written by: June Perkins      Date: 29 July 2011

To make a song – guitar, keyboard, people, words – Courtesy June Perkins

I can’t believe I had never heard of Song Trails before this year.  Vanessa Bromley who runs our local Tully music shop and Evolve told me it was coming through Cassowary Coast and asked if I wanted to be put on an ‘expressions of interest’ list.

It wasn’t definite the trail would be heading our way so she was drumming up interest.  I said, ‘Sure why not? Count me in!’ Then later I heard from our Cassowary Arts Officer, Kath Barnett- all systems go!

I have written poetry since I was eight and completed four years in classical guitar training over twenty years ago.  Since that time I have never neglected my guitar although I have  played mostly popular and folk tunes to amuse the kids and myself.

The poetry has been going well and I have published a few pieces and co-edited an anthology for the Licuala Writers of the Cassowary Coast called  Under One Sky, but it is only recently that I began to write songs.  The main catalysts for my song writing efforts were shifting from city to small country town living, as well as wanting to add music to our group’s public prose and poetry readings.

Cassowary Coast, our home since 2006, is super wet and a complex place when you dig under its surface.   Now, we have had the dubious experience of being through two severe cyclones and living in their aftermath.  We’re in a fertile place for experience that inspires words and music- as well as being great for growing sugar cane and bananas.

The concept of Song Trails intrigued me when I found out more about it – just how were forty people with four talented song writers, going to create songs in four hours? When we arrived and found out that we only had one hour and thirty minutes of the time for the song creation, and production I was mildly terrified.  Can you really co-write a song in such a short amount of time with people you might not even know?

As I explained in Muso Intros the workshop artists first introduced themselves and ran an informal panel to put us at ease before we got down to song making.  We were then asked to immediately put into practice some of the principles they had shared with us.  We moved into our song- writing groups: two groups of twenty, with two artists to lead us.  I found myself in Peter Farnan and Leah Flannagan’s group.

Peter and Leah say ‘go with the flow’ – courtesy June Perkins

Our first exercise was two minutes of automatic writing on the key word ‘Ahead.’  We were asked to put down anything that came into our head.   We were ‘free-writing.’

Participants Freewriting – Courtesy June Perkins

Then people volunteered to read their productions – and words flowed from our pages to our mouths, to the group, to butcher paper and white board.  Farnan asked us to read slowly and stopped us at phrases or key words that sprung out at him.  We ended up with a group set of phrases and key words to work with.

Song in progress, courtesy June Perkins.

He noticed in our words – time shifting, a sense of loss, references to bed and associations with beds like mattresses  (perhaps because it rhymed with ahead) and interesting phrases like:

‘Everytime I think of flowers I wanna make fires’

This ended up being our chorus.

We were asked what key, ‘major or minor?’  We went for minor.  Farnan began to play chords on the keyboard and turned to Flannagan every now and then for her input, ‘what do you think here?’   Flannagan hummed a melody as he played more chord combinations.

As our chorus solidified people wanting a song compass asked, ‘Are you going to tell us basic song structure?’

Farnan urged everyone to go with the flow, explaining that ‘this song is organic and its structure will emerge in the process of doing.’   We went with the flow.

Our group song ended up with: a chorus, two verses, a bridge, a guitar solo and a gospel feel, through this surprising process.

As we added in the ideas from the group, and explored the snippets we had ‘automatically written’ we stripped away unnecessary words, and repetition, to make the lines scan better for the song and seem more mysterious.  As we did this new phrases came into being and made their way into our song.

At one stage our song was heading for Bob Dylan territory and then gothic, Black Sabbath day style – gravestones were in danger of appearing, perhaps the influence of some of the musical tastes in our group, but another element wanted some light – something positive and less bleak (although Farnan felt the words did not have to be read as bleak). Flannagan encouraged our efforts to balance the song, and so a mattress to protect (from one of our automatic writers) began to appear in the lyrics. Song writing can be a real ying and yang gig I’ve since concluded.

We sang the chorus with Farnan accompanying us on keyboard (he is a brilliant pianist), as we thought about whether the lines flowed into each other well enough.  Finally the discussion lead to verses that seemed to work.  The skeleton of our song came into a fully fleshed being.

Our song seemed to speak to me personally of the anger of being in a cyclone, and then recovering to win the day.  Maybe our automatic writing had unearthed something we needed to speak about, but we had not set out with a specific idea to do this.

I am not sure what it said to others so I hope they will respond to this blog.

Later we got together with the other group facilitated by Rebecca Barnard and Robert Forster, and shared our song, and they revealed theirs – a heart-warming  and cheery song with food at its centre from “Mama’s Kitchen,”  which I think will be shared on the live stream as well.

Robert and Rebecca sharing their group’s song – courtesy June Perkins

Our group formed a spontaneous Cassowary Recovery choir to sing to the other song writers.   We were inspired and maybe even healed  by the process of composing and belting out a gospel rhythm song expressing so much of what we have been through on the Cassowary Coast.

We closed the whole Song Trails evening with a brief sharing of our own songs.  I wish we had more time as there was so much talent in the room from our local area; it would have been good to  get to know them as individuals and maybe hear more of  our panel’s thoughts on our local song-writing efforts, but there just wasn’t time. Our guest artists were apologetic about this and gave us a few sentences or sang along enthusiastically.

Local Band – sharing their work – courtesy June Perkins (more at my flickr space)

Still the group unity in creating and the joy in performing that new work is really what Song Trails seems to be about; we can follow each other up.

Song Trails has inspired me to seek out talented musicians and singers to collaborate with and to keep working on my song writing skills.  You can follow my continuing song writing efforts and progression if you like on Gumbootspearlz youtube.

Why not share your comments about being in a song trails workshop?

Especially those of Hugenden; I heard your song last night at the Song Trails concert in Innisfail and cannot get it out of my head!  Neither can anyone in my family.  It is so beautiful and to think you got that all from the word “chill”, sends chills down my spine.

I’d love to hear from other Song Trailers on the critical mass or my Unity’s Garden Site.  It feels like we are one big family now.

**

You can visit catch June at Aftermath’s ABC’s Open Project.   She  has a song “Rain is All there is” for you to comment on if you want to help her in her song writing journey.  For more photos of the workshop visit Gumbootspearlz flickr.

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Flickr Testimonial from Image Peace

imagepeace says:

“June is a beautiful person. Love radiates from her images and her amazing smile. As you will see, her family is the foundation of her art. Not only does she capture tender moments of her children, she somehow let’s you see through her children’s eyes. As a talented poet, she also uses words to tell her personal stories. She has touched my heart in many ways and I am thankful. ~~~ dreaming the dream of peace~~~ jani –imagepeace”

13th December, 2006

Flickr Friend’s Testimonial

livhouse, the paronomeister™ says:

“This is one very special person – despite being several years my junior she is helping me to grow up, by retrieving things from my childhood she can’t have known about except in a universal sense.

What June knows is not limited by accident of birth – either as regards circumstance or timing. She knows lots of little truths and some very big truths too. Maybe it’s faith, maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s a mixture of those. I have reason to think there are other ways of learning the same truths. Whichever of those, or whichever combination, that matters less than the knowledge itself. And she knows.

Of course what I’ll say next isn’t physically possible, but can I say: I might be a bit of a rough lad sometimes, but I couldn’t be galdder to know this lady if she were my own mum.”

16th January, 2007

‘Review of Archives in the Land’

Walking Childhood

Mixed collage. Childhood photograph and image of artist’s foot.

Learn to walk in your own feet
and be in your own skin
and then unlearn how to be in the ideas of skin
and walk in another realm

- By June Perkins

First shared in Archives in the Land on line exhibition.

This is from my Pearlz Dreaming blog Archives & is a Review of ‘Archives in the Land’ my first online exhibition.  Ron Price a poet and essayist residing in Tasmania, but world travelled, had this to say.

Diligent Indolence
a poetic review of Archives in the land a blog

By Ron Price

So often, when I go to art galleries, I get sleepy and all the talent, all the art is wasted on my eyes as I fall asleep in a chair leaving my wife or perhaps a friend to walk around the said gallery by themselves. It could be some visual disability that I possess; perhaps it is a problem with spaces. I’ve never really figured it out. The main function of TV for me, sad to say, is as a mild sedative. My brain begins to shut off while my wife is getting turned on. That’s okay for after many hours with print my brain wants to turn off. The affect of my poetry on many others often induces sleep. I understand that. Different horses for different courses. Sleep is as essential to life as art.

One must write, one must engage in artistic work, with one’s eyes on something inner as well as someone outer. I find visuals on the internet, at sites like June’s, much more stimulating. I don’t have to walk anywhere and try to enage on a distant painting. And I don’t get sleepy. I can breathe the fresh Tasmanian air coming in my window beside my computer here in Australia’s oldest town. I can read some words, see some photos, some art, some colour. I can spend 5 minutes or an hour at the site. I’m in control, well, at least partly. The mix is good. The mind can engage.

The following prose-poem is a description of my engagement with June’s artistic collage some four hours ago.

Diligent Indolence

Perhaps this is some of that
diligent indolence that Keats
said was necessary for poetry
to emerge in gentle self-surrender
to the savouring of days past,
days to come and thought’s gold.Sitting, standing, breathing
here at this online gallery
letting the space, the photographs,
the forms, the varied shapes,
the words, bounce off my
sensory emporium like art
works around the walls
of an art gallery: people
I hardly know come to life:
a beauty, a freshness, a newness.

I try to get eye to engage mind,
but without much success.
Worlds are here but still-born,
to my mind, my tabula rasa.
What can I say? think? do?
Surely this is not just to enjoy?

”Just enjoy”, said the muse:
the smoothest of smooth worlds,
beautiful people, young, very young,
they pop up and up and down and down
and I stroll by with my eye trying to catch
with some of my quiet moments
some of their vitality from their young,
persistent faces bubbling over with life.

She is so beautiful, a thing unto herself,
something magic, deserves at least
a nomination for this work in this place
at some future Internet Academy Wards.
Created, partly, by genetic evolution,
DNA , in a process we are just beginning,
just, to understand. Such beauty, real life,
can be transferred to a wall, a website
and to your heart, that is usually slow.

So much space, order, regularity here,
evenness. I hesitate to send my “little”
poems onto these bright pages, my pieces
with their own regularities and evennesses
where the eyes, too, must engage the mind.

Who will stroll by my work?
who will try and sit and read?
Smiling with “what do you think
of this dear?” Who will sleep,
as I sleep, with my poetry laid out
before me on my bed of ease?

Who will read and watch these
images fly by in gay profusion?
Someone said there are several
trillion sites now for all of us
part of the unparalleled character
of the coming world civilization.
Well, here is one part,
one small part, sweet and young
and so very beautiful to defy
definition or description.
Are my words over the top?
Perhaps.

Ron Price
February 1st 2006

Ron Price has a strong interest in publishing on the internet as well as other forms. A couple of collection of many links is provided below.

http://www.writers.net/writers/36722
http://www.buzzle.com/authors.asp?author=805