Artist’s Statement
‘Memory for Dust’ is a poem that lay buried in one of my journals for a number of years. It recounts the death of our pet cat which was hit by a car outside our home. My little boy found Lenny’s broken body on the road and all I remember were his screams of terror. I wrapped Lenny in a blanket and we cuddled him in the back yard to the sounds of sobbing. The reality of death and dying is perhaps the hardest lesson we humans have to learn. It was the night my son lost his innocence.
James Laidler is a poet and writer from country Victoria. His first novel, The Taste of Apple was written in verse and published by Interactive Press. James wrote his second novel, Pulling Down the Stars, published by Hybrid Press, while living in East Timor. In East Timor James worked as 2nd Assistant Director on East Timor’s first ever international feature film, A Guerra Da Beatriz. This is where he developed his love of mixed media and film making which he now pursues in addition to his writing. James recently started the ‘Litpoetry’ Project — a platform designed to promote poetry to a wider audience through the development of a YouTube channel, podcast and website.