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A Whispering Spirit

A Whispering Spirit

by Ann Chatham

About The Book

“The Whispering Spirit” is a collection of images, thoughts and insights into the heart of a listening poet. The poems between the covers of this book tell the story of laughter, pain, joy and suffering. This collection of poems record a relationship between people, other creatures and living things. Some poems explore how an object such as a piece of fabric, a rock orchid or a spider can poke the spirit and its story must be told. There is humour in many of these pieces of work. There is tragedy and suffering too. Some of these poems have a spiritual insight: a conversation with God, if you will, that troubles my sleep until I write it down. I hope you find “The Whispering Spirit” a vision of the great and the small. I hope you too can heat the beating heart of the world.

Details
Publication date May 19,2022
Language English
ISBN (Paperback)
979-8-88622-282-1 (E-BOOK)
Genre Fiction, Poetry
Specifications
Pages 80
Interior Color Black and White
Book Size 6.000" x 9.000" (229mm x 152mm)

About The Author

I was born and partly raised in a little country town of Peak Hill in the wheat/sheep belt of N.S.W.
My father and two brothers were often out in the scrub driving mobs of sheep to market, in the shearing shed taking the wool off. or in the paddock breaking horses or training sheepdogs.
I remember having two pet kangaroo joeys when I was a child. Their mothers were shot for meat to feed the many sheepdogs on the drive. My father brought the babies home for me to raise. I managed to raise one to adulthood and it used to follow me to school. But that’s a whole other story.

I bottle-fed lambs, climbed trees, rode horses at a very young age and generally roamed in the bush around our small village. We were a poor family, living in a tumbled-down shack across the road from a big Aboriginal community. I was the youngest of 6 children. My brothers and older sister were teenagers by the time I came along. My poetry begins there, in a place among the gum trees, the wheat fields, the animals, the spiders and the bush flies. All of which have a special place in my heart and therefore my poetry. For poetry is the language of the heart.

There is a poem in my book, “for the Love of Little Things,” which highlights my deep respect for the smallest creatures in our living space. I am a deeply religious person. I have studied Theology at the college of Divinity / at Sydney University and taught in religious schools for more than 30 years. But similar to Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures, I fight with God: I question, I argue, I plead to understand this Spirit-filled battle that has been the driving force of my poetry.

Over the years ( from about the age of 12) I have penned insights into people, places, animals and events. It is in this new book I have explored what happens when I listen to the quiet voice of the Whispering Spirit.

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