Junctures - The Journal for Thematic Dialogue

Muirhead, Anna

Ballard, Susan

Beevors, Michele

Bell, Victoria

Carran, Bekah

Eady, Scott

Morley, Michael

Pauling, Emily

Smith, Benjamin & Sidney

English

"The Back Boot" Project

Paul, Dawn

"Grand Canyon"

Beynon, Claire

Nature's Little Masons: Seven Meditations on Two Antarctic Seasons

Milic, Nela

119Milic – Imaging Islands – Junctures, 12, Jun 2009
Artist’s PAges NeLA MiLiC
imaging islands
People and places are my thing. Whenever I think I am too happy, too cozy, too sheltered, too 
confident, too professional, too sorted, too healthy – when things are too perfect in general – I 
go to places where this is not the case or my photographs capture an image as a reminder 
of the world’s imperfection and hence, its beauty.
The Motorcyclist has his show-off gear, but his look reveals 
that he might be thinking about his age or the fact that he 
found himself sitting on his own on a summer day in a busy 
street. A perfect man who created an island of himself? 
Easy Rider took his bike, but left his waistcoat as a 
momentum – marking a territory he might come back 
to in a spiritual rather than a physical way as the coat 
will be flying with the wind and in that flight it will touch 
people or hang around buildings and trees as the cyclist 
is hoping to be able to. Yes, I am both -- a cyclist and a 
photographer.
120
Somerset House Fairy delighted 
and frightened me when I saw her 
picture after taking it. I thought I 
was playing with the light while 
the kids were playing with the 
water, but she might have done 
something sinister to the workings 
of the sunshine and directed the 
whole seemingly innocent ritual. 
So London. 
Thai Market is the picture taken 
by my sister, Sally Kiddle. She 
travelled the world that year 
and came back with images of 
dozens of countries I have never 
been to. I was hearing stories of 
the faraway lands like I was a 
child again being read a bedtime 
story. The world still fascinates so 
much even though we now have 
the greatest ever access to other 
places.
Nela Milic is a writer and a visual artist born in Belgrade. She started her career as 
a journalist writing reviews, critiques and conducting interviews for the Culture and 
City pages of the Daily Telegraph and for the performing arts magazine Ludus. She 
studied Film and Television Direction and the History of the Theatre at the University 
of Belgrade and she worked as a filmmaker and a journalist at the very popular BK 
television station in Serbia. She completed a course in Film and Television Production 
at the University of Westminster and is currently studying for a doctoral degree in 
Visual Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Milic is also a producer of many 
arts events from theatre and film festivals to exhibitions and she regularly speaks at 
symposia on media, art and refugee issues. She is a member of OISTAT, NUJ and the 
United Nations Association. Her latest project can be seen at www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/
balkanising-taxonomy
Milic – Imaging Islands – Junctures, 12, Jun 2009


Imaging Islands

Petelin, George

Can We Trust Our Ground Control?

Arcana, Judith

75
POEM
Arcana – The Crows – Junctures, 10, Jun 2008
JUDITH ARCANA
The Crows
Middle-aged women are flocking to see the crows.
They stand on sidewalks, on lawns, and they stare
at the tops of telephone poles, the highest branches
of trees; they sit on picnic tables in the park, perch
at the fountain’s edge to watch the crows walk
slowly through strips of sunlight between trees,
their black eyes sharp as scissors, knives, razors,
black feathers brightly purpled by the light, satin
green and blue, shocking streaks of sudden red
shining off the blackest backs of crows who never
look at the women, crows who walk, stop, open
wide capes of wing and flex their black stick legs
to enter the air; they rise to fly, calling each other
by name, calling each other’s names out of the sky.
Judith Arcana’s most recent book is the poetry collection What if your mother (2005); 
among her prose books is Grace Paley’s Life Stories: A Literary Biography. Her poems, 
stories and essays have been published in journals and anthologies for more than 
thirty years. In 2007, her work appeared in 5AM, Persimmon Tree, White Ink, Bridges, 
Umbrella, ARM Journal and Passager.  Read more at juditharcana.com


"The Crows"

Modeen, Mary

108
Mary Modeen, Healing Earth, 2006, Isle of Man (images courtesy of the artist).
Modeen – Echoes of Voice – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
109
MARY MODEEN
Echoes of  Voices Long Gone: Soundsculpture
Visual artists are in a curious position in regard to voices. They are at one and the same 
time ‘silent’ as individuals, investing their visual art with the charge of personal and editorial 
commentary, but also ‘audible’ when it happens that sound itself is incorporated in their 
chosen medium.
I am an artist who has only recently ventured into the world of sound art. In an exhibition 
last year (2006) on the Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea between Ireland, Scotland and 
England, I was commissioned by Manx National Heritage to create a three-part outdoor sited 
installation. This was entitled Healing Earth and consisted in part of three sixteen-feet high 
steel poles, tapered to a three-inch diameter at the base and a six-inch diameter at the top. 
These were placed in three sites on the island. 
In addition to the painted steel poles, a ‘sound tapestry’ was created for each site. This was 
comprised of many elements: recorded Manx voices from the archives of the National Library, 
contemporary voices, ambient sound, simulated sounds and a small amount of music. The 
viewers at each site accessed the sounds through a ‘U-Turn’ box, which operates by winding 
and does not need electricity to play. This and an interpretive text were positioned on a 
purpose-designed oak table stand near each pole. Viewers could play the sounds, listen to 
the soundwork, and view the site with special attention to place and placement. 
The first site was Niarbyl. It is on the west coast of the island, and has long distant views over 
hills, coast, and water, down towards the Calf of Man. Long views, too, in terms of history 
suggesting ancient ancestors, dwelling on the coast, watching out at sea. Several elements 
of sound were woven into this piece, including heartbeats, historic Manx voices, deep bass 
notes, ambient sounds with gulls crying and wind blowing, and snippets of Manx Celtic 
traditional music and drums. 
Manx National Heritage’s Grove House was the most northerly site, near Ramsey. At the 
foot of the gardens, a view through trees revealed the flat meadowland rising abruptly into 
the steep hills: the contrast is between high and low. The alluvial plains meet the hills in 
oppositions of vertical and horizontal land. A steam train runs down the embankment and 
the stream flows toward the sea. All this – water, train whistle, gathering storm clouds, and 
timpani rolls – are audible on the soundtape, embedded as a sound file in the online version 
of this issue of Junctures.2 
ESSAY
Modeen – Echoes of Voice – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
110
The grounds of the great Laxey Wheel are the third site, on the path to the engine shed.This 
is the largest working waterwheel in the world, and a visible testament to Victorian industrial 
engineering. Miners extracted ore deep underground in a pattern of activity and shelter. 
With the wheel slowly moving, almost in sight of the sea, water flows down deep and shaded 
ravines. 
All three sited sculptures are part of a series of imposing forms that pierce the earth’s skin 
and resonate with overlays of sound. The fixedness of the poles stand to mark this place, 
one’s place, the viewers’ place of perception, vision and a moment in time.
This work resonates with the historical aesthetic of what is sometimes called a gesamtkunstwerk. 
It is German for ‘total art’, that which includes every aspect of consideration. In this genre, light, 
sound, movement, space, colour and so on were all carefully planned in Medieval to Baroque 
art, culminating in the works of Richard Wagner later in the nineteenth century. What makes 
this work more contemporary than historical in its use of synthesis as a method is that it is 
sited outdoors. Unlike the interior spaces of historical antecedents, this work incorporates 
the whole environment for each site: train whistles, gulls, recorded historical voices, wind, 
heartbeats, waves, and storm clouds. Similar to the German Romantics, the intention behind 
this synthesis is the evocation of all ways of knowing and understanding, not just the reliance 
on sight or sound. Intuitive levels of deep knowledge are beckoned.
As part of the interpretive text on each panel, I wrote these words: 
We are here on this earth, not just on it, but a part of it. As human animals 
our lives, at their best, are sustained by ways of knowing that have grown for 
centuries, tended by our ancestors. Something in the wind’s smell, something 
in the evening sun, something in the lay of the land whispers to us in words 
we have forgotten. Awaking dormant knowledge, healing begins with a quest 
for balance.
The ancient Chinese developed a philosophy, a medicine, and a way of living 
based on attunement to channels of life energy. These have been called by 
various names, Chi, Tao or Dao. All refer to a harmony of life force, conducted 
through Nature and so through the earth, through animals and all living things. 
Disharmony -- or lack of attention paid to imbalances -- is the cause of disruption 
and grief. Acupuncture is one form of healing based on this knowledge. The 
needle penetrates the skin, and touches the channel of energy, vibrates and 
resonates with restorative contact.
So, too, we humans, animals still despite our intelligence need the grace of 
harmony. What do we bring? What do we give when we take? Voices from the 
past echo through the gulls’ cry and the wind.
Voices, especially the recorded Manx voices, have a particular poignancy for Manx people. The 
tiny fragments used for this project of mine came from recordings of the last of the islanders 
who spoke Manx as a mother tongue.3 Members of the Irish Folklore Commission travelled 
to Man in 1948 to record these elderly men and women. Ned Maddrell, the last surviving 
native-speaker, died in December 1974. In the set published by Manx National Heritage under 
Modeen – Echoes of Voice – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
111
the title of Skeealyn Vannin (Vannin is Man or Mann in Manx), the six CD-Rom set documents 
men’s and women’s voices, telling stories, reciting verse, sharing anecdotes and singing.4 
Their particular blend of Gaelic in a Manx accent had the distinctiveness of words and phrases 
not found elsewhere. Although certainly closely related to the Irish Gaelic of Ulster and 
Munster, and to Scottish west-coast Gaelic, and much less closely to the Brythonic languages 
of Cornwall, Wales, and Brittany5, certain words and pronunciations were purely Manx.This 
is not surprising, as many island-based communities have a degree of remoteness which 
promotes idiosyncratic variations in dialect and idiom in any language or custom. But also, 
over generations, truly distinctive patterns begin to emerge in the flux of a spoken language. 
For example, ‘pony’ or ‘little horse’ in Scottish Gaelic is capull beag, in Irish Gaelic is cappal 
beag, in Welsh is ceffyl bach, and in Manx is cabbyl beg. 
Variations in pronunciation are not the only differences from Manx’s closest linguistic kin. 
For example, convention in writing and spelling show a certain distinctiveness. In Scottish 
and Irish Gaelic, the ’mh’ sound is closest to a ‘v’ pronunciation in English. But Manx written 
language uses the written V instead of the more traditional ‘Mh’ as is seen in this following 
example: ‘Isle of Man’ in Irish would be written Oileán Mhanainn or in Scottish Gaelic would 
be Eilean Mhanainn, but in Manx is actually written Ellan Vannin.6  The variations in spelling 
and written form (orthography) here are that of an Anglicised or phonetic convention; the 
pronunciation would be about the same in all three spoken languages.
This returns us to the issue of sound. The speakers’ voices on these historical and valuable 
tapes preserves another important aspect of voices. The voicing of the language is at least 
as fascinating as the words themselves. These are the voices of elderly people; the women 
have high-pitched wavering notes in their voices. The men have reedy voices, more tenor than 
bass at this point in their lives. At various points, they laugh, recalling memories and people. 
They cough, they go quiet, losing themselves in a moment’s recollections. The rhythm, speed 
and pattern of their voices are significant. The fullness of sound is not just the sense – it is 
the whole experience, the human character, perceptions and memories which underlay the 
content of the words. Just as in the oral tradition itself, the weight of meaning is the sum of 
all performative elements – the storyteller’s body, gestures and face, the rhythm of the words, 
and the twinkle in the eye are just as telling as the literal meaning of the words. 
This personal, often quirky element makes the living language the treasure that it is. The 
Manx-speaking voices on Man that have been lost are valued today, in part through the 
documentation of sound recordings, but also in the resurgence of interest and commitment 
to the revival of the Manx language. Five of the island’s pre-schools and one primary school 
teach solely in Manx; it is taught as a second language at all of the island’s primary and 
secondary schools. Signs, place names, traditional names for flora and fauna, and even the 
resurrection of old family names7 are further evidence of indigenous pride at the value of 
the language in solidifying culture and identity. Manx is far from being a moribund language: 
today it is witnessing a true renaissance.
The importance of language as bearer and shaper of culture is incontrovertible. In many 
cultures around the world today where identity – particularly indigenous identity – has been 
subsumed by colonisation, Westernisation, and the influx of population from elsewhere, a 
Modeen – Echoes of Voice – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
112
resurgence of interest and commitment to preservation of native languages remains high on 
the agenda. Máori language, for example, in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Basque language 
in Basque Spain are indicative of cultural voices that refuse to be silenced; in both of these 
cases youngsters are being taught the language of their cultural heritage at every level in 
education. As with the Manx, the true renaissance is in the voices of the people in their native 
tongue, rich in its diversity, genuine in its ‘locational identity’.8
Voices, then, on the Isle of Man will resound in times to come with children’s voices added to 
those of the elders speaking in Manx. The shouts and laughter of children’s play are embedded 
in the soundworks of Healing Earth, in tapestries of water, wind, gulls’ cries, the sound of 
thunder, of the distant past, the recent past, and of now, in a pattern as old as time itself. 
ACkNoWLEDGEMENT : Healing Earth was made in 2006, by Mary Modeen, in collaboration 
with: soundwork by Mark Wallace, woodwork by Alan Greig and metalwork by Graeme 
McQuillan, and commissioned by Manx National Heritage with additional sponsorship by 
Blackbox AV (Uk), and funding from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Research 
Committee, and the Carnegie Trust for Scottish Universities.
 1 All the images included here were first illustrated in This Place Called Home, ed. Mary Modeen 
(Douglas, Isle of Man: Manx National Heritage, 2006).
 2 Grove House, steam train, 3 minutes: 34 seconds (AIFF file, Mary Modeen, 2006).
 3 Information cited in Manx National Heritage and Isle of Man government websites. Yn Cheshaght 
Ghailckagh is the Manx Gaelic Society which was founded in 1899. The very active Manx Language 
Society is Caaryn ny Gaelgey.
 4 Skeealyn Vannin, Douglas, Isle of Man: Manx National Heritage, 2004. Six CD audio tapes in a set 
with transcriptions, produced from original recordings in 1948 by the Irish Folklore Commission.
 5 The Brythonic category of Celtic languages includes not only Welsh, but Breton, Cornish, and Pictish, 
amongst others. This is in contrast to the Goidelic family of Celtic languages, the closest neighbours 
to Manx which are cited here above.
 6 orthography of Manx Gaelic, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_lang as last accessed 
on 20 october 2007.
 7 Peddyr (Peter), Breeshey (Bridgit), and Aalish/Ealish (Alice).
 8 This term is used by Miwon kwon in One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity 
(London and Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2002).
Mary Modeen is an artist/printmaker who also works in artist books, installations, and 
recently, in video and sound. She resides in Scotland where she is a senior lecturer in 
Fine Art and Course Director for Art, Philosophy and Contemporary Practices at the 
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee. 
Modeen – Echoes of Voice – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007


Echoes of Voices Long Gone: Soundsculpture

Venis, Jane

117
Jane Venis
Raucous
diary of the silent one (March 2005)
I feel the thumping of the sound system punctuated by exuberant bursts of laughter as I 
thread my way through the early evening pub crowd. All around me people are in animated 
conversation. I find my friends at a large table near the back.
Everyone tries to include me but as I can only communicate by writing, or whispering hoarsely 
into someone’s ear, I’m soon left behind in the conversation which leaps on without me. I 
scribble frantically to try and keep up, but by the time I’ve finished writing, the topic has totally 
changed and the moment to engage has long gone. I decide I need a drink.
“Can’t hear you, speak up.” For the third time I try to ask for an Emerson’s Pilsner but a 
raucous group next to the bar kills any hope I have of being heard, so I end up pointing to a 
beer the guy next to me is drinking, God knows what it is.
Suddenly everything seems unnaturally loud in comparison to my voiceless state and I have 
an overwhelming urge to thump one of the men at the bar who has a particularly penetrating 
voice. There is so much noise surrounding me I feel besieged. 
I realise I have to leave, now.
I have been reflecting on my year of voice loss which was, without doubt, the most difficult of 
my life.1 After a relatively unsuccessful voice operation I had to undergo a period of complete 
silence. A recovery period followed when I could speak only a few words a day. Before I lost 
my voice I had never considered the concept of wasting words or that I would have only a 
daily ration to spend.
My enjoyment of good conversation is something I had taken for granted. I also came to 
realise how conversation and energy levels are linked. Because I couldn’t banter, argue and 
joke in the way I used to, I felt exhausted after trying to communicate rather than becoming 
enlivened by conversation as I had in the past.
aRtist’s Pages
Jane Venis – Raucous – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
118
diary of the silent one (april 2005)
It’s come to this: I’m standing in my speech therapist’s office making tugboat noises. I can 
now be a tugboat up and down a small scale and surprisingly, it helps. I’m starting to see 
these visits as a life-line.  
At home I practice my tugboats in the bath and hope my partner is getting used to this 
regression to toddlerhood.
When I was finally released from the constraint of voice rationing my volume was far too low 
to socialise at all without electronic support.2 This was an issue with my family and friends 
but also with my pets. I couldn’t call the cat, for example; my raspy voice only extended as 
far as the edge of the deck. But it wasn’t much better with people. If I was more than a few 
feet away they couldn’t tell I was talking to them. I found myself trotting around like a small 
terrier, sidling up to people to get their attention. I felt that I was losing my personality as well 
as my voice, or that my new voice had swallowed up the real me. 
diary of the silent one (May 2005)
The restaurant table is littered with the detritus of a good meal, half-filled wine glasses and 
the desert menus. In the centre of the table is my ‘talking handbag’, a rather tatty harakeke 
kete with a thin black lead trailing out of it to my headset mini-microphone. I feel surprisingly 
unselfconscious about my sound system despite bad jokes about aerobics class and 80s 
lycra. What a relief to be out talking with a group of friends.
The volume gets turned up several times to match the escalating background noise. 
Unfortunately, it blurts out a too loud comment into an unexpected volume drop. I wish I 
hadn’t told the whole  room THAT.
The handbag says the most outrageous things, perhaps it’s been drinking.
Figure 1: Jane Venis, Talking Handbag, 2005, 
lined kete or bag made with harakeke or flax 
and incorporating miniature battery-powered 
amplifier with lapel microphone (image 
courtesy of the artist).
Jane Venis – Raucous – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
119
RAUcoUS project
My experience in using the Talking Handbag prompted me to develop the idea further into 
Raucous, a research project, to develop a voice aid for vocally impaired people. I have been 
researching the possibilities of a light and powerful amplifying system that is discretely 
integrated into clothing. There have been some recent developments in wearable mp3 players 
by a number of companies aimed at specific markets, in particular the youth and sporting 
market.3  However, it is so much easier to amplify an mp3 file through either head-phones or 
speakers with a small amplifier than to pick up and amplify a faint voice. 
This will be the challenge for the Raucous project. The concept is to develop a system that 
will be light, safe, flexible and affordable and could have applications for the large numbers 
of people who suffer voice loss. Although this is primarily a design project it will also have a 
fine arts outcome as I am excited by the possibilities that discrete amplification will have for 
performance and sound works.
Voice loss affects a large number of people world-wide. This loss can be from a variety of 
causes, including medical, environmental, and psychological. Medical conditions that cause 
voice loss include throat cancer, vocal polyp and papilloma, vocal nodules and Parkinson’s 
Disease. Voice overuse also contributes to chronic voice loss. Over-projection is also happening 
in industry where the health and safety focus has traditionally been on hearing loss due to 
high workplace decibels. These constant high decibels also promote voice overuse, which is 
exacerbated when workers in noisy environments wear earmuffs.4 
The high profile of hearing loss and available technology for support when compared to the 
lack of technological support for people needing to amplify a faint voice, prompted me to 
make the satirical Voice Trumpet.5 
Figure 2: Jane Venis, Voice Trumpet, 2007, performance rehearsal with Hannah Joynt 
(image courtesy of the artist and the photographer Liz Bryce).
Jane Venis – Raucous – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
120
Values surrounding speech and silence
In my current arts practice I focus on questioning and satirising popular culture with particular 
emphasis on both local and New Zealand mythologies. A series on the Otago icon Southern 
Man6  (2001), and his nemesis Southern Woman, signalled my interest in the gendering of 
voice and silence long before I experienced my voice loss. However, I am now re-reading these 
works in the light of that experience.
Figure 3: Jane Venis, oh Southern Man, 2001, cartoon series, 30 x 20 cm, acrylic on hardboard (image 
courtesy of the artist).
Figure 4: Jane Venis, 2001, Beer-Faced Lies, 
44 gallon six pack (image courtesy of the 
artist).
Jane Venis – Raucous – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
121
The silence of Southern Man is legendary; he represents a culture where stoicism and 
taciturnity are considered virtues. He is as unyielding as the southern landscape he inhabits: 
cold, dry and hard.7 
in Beer-Faced Lies (2001), I discuss how the iconic silent kiwi male ‘opens up’ after a few 
beers. Somehow inebriation with alcohol provides a socially acceptable platform for men to 
talk. This work incorporates a tear tab whereby the viewer activates a soundtrack of multi-
tracked male voices recorded in a sportsman’s bar. The small print reads “Brewed in stoic 
silence in Dunedin.”
It appears that the gendering of values placed on voice and silence are reinforced by their 
stereotyping in popular culture. The paradox of Speight’s Southern Man’s popularity is that 
despite the clearly ironical edge displayed by the character, he is all too real and has come 
to be revered for the very qualities that were being satirised. Southern Man has turned the 
taciturn kiwi bloke into a cult hero, revered for his strong silent masculinity. In his silence 
there is the implication of control from within.
Conversely, verbosity implies a lack of control. When looking at the common elements in a 
list of colloquial words and phrases describing wordiness, many of them appear to be words 
usually associated with women and implying a wasting of words. For example: gossip, tittle-
tattle, chit chat, chatter, blather, prattle, gabble, blabber, jabber, babble, flannel, gab, gush, 
tattle, belittle, cackle, banter, drivel, natter, blether, chinwag, gas, chat, chew the fat, patter, 
blab, yarn and gos. Silent women, however, are rewarded by the terms tranquil, serene, still, 
soft, quiescent and calm. 
My exterior became tranquil and calm by default. When I lost my voice I no longer had the 
luxury of wasting words. Every word counted. I had to measure my words very carefully because 
if I talked too much, by the end of the day my whispering voice would be completely silenced. 
I started thinking about the huge difference between the dignity of self-imposed silence and 
the stifling effect of silence imposed by external factors. 
I experienced a high level of condescension around my new-found silence. I was tired of 
comments like “tell me what you are learning by having to always listen” (subtext: what a 
shock for such a blabbermouth to finally shut up). Serenity is not my natural state; I longed 
to be so rich with words that I could again spend them on nonsense, word play, meaningless 
drivel and song.
DIAry OF THE SILENT ONE (SEPTEMBEr 2005)
It’s now three weeks since my second operation and I can speak!!  My voice is a bit husky 
but I have VOLUME. I feel a huge sense of relief. 
I make the decision to apply for funding to get the “raucous Project” underway.
Jane Venis – Raucous – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007
122
 1 I have had major voice loss in the last three years because of papilloma, a viral condition that causes 
growths on the vocal chords. Fortunately, after two operations my voice has now been restored. 
 2 My feeble whisper was totally powerless against any situation involving more than a one-to-one 
conversation in a quiet room. 
 3 Kaho Abe’s Seamless Project, in which he incorporates audio technology into his garments, is one 
of these. See Kaho Abe, “Seamless”, Sigtronica, at <http://seamless.sigtronica.org/projects.html> 
last accessed on 15 November 2005. Another high-profile company is Phillips with their Nomad 
technology incorporating soft user interfaces. See Phillips Nomad, Akibalive, at <http://www.akibalive.
com/archives/000512.html> last accessed on 15 November 2005. 
 4 Nerys Williams and Paul Carding, Occupational Voice Loss (London: Taylor & Francis, 2005).
 5 Although there is technology for people with no larynx – using a system for amplifying vocal vibrations 
(which produces a robotic sounding voice) – very little help is available for people needing to amplify 
a faint voice produced from a damaged larynx.
 6 “Southern Man” represents the stereotypical New Zealand rural white male; he is caricatured by 
Speight’s brewery in their advertising campaign.
 7 Otago Geographer robin Law analysed the Speight’s Brewery “Southern Man” campaign whereby she 
discussed links between the iconography of landscape and the cultural politics of masculinity. See 
robin Law, “Masculinity, Place and Beer Advertising in New Zealand: The Southern Man Campaign”, 
NZ Geographer, 53 (1997): 22-28.
Jane Venis is an artist who works across sculpture, sound, performance and design. 
She graduated with the Master of Fine Arts Degree from the School of Art, Otago 
Polytechnic, in 2006; and is currently academic leader for the Creative Studies 
Programme in the Design Department. Her studio work explores the notion of the 
‘carnivalesque’ and the ways in which it manifests in contemporary popular culture.
Jane Venis – Raucous – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007


"Raucous"

Levin, Carol

123
Carol levin
We Don’t Sing Carols in our House
Came slowly to me,
how I loved
the songs and worried
not a wit
about the occasion.
I savored
a sleeping baby –
couldn’t resist
almost
a baby myself.
Calm, bright, silent, night
Misunderstood
manger. Rocking to and fro
in a whisper I sang and sang
vibrations of melodies
filling me out.
My mind’s eye
saw gifts’ shiny boxes,
really bright stars, and
the word swaddle,
even when
I didn’t understand
swaddle,
I mused
soothing and safe.
Oh relish the
Singing –
Heaven knows
I never knew
anything
of the conceit,
of The God.
Carol Levin’s chapbook Sea Lions Sing Scat is due from Finishing Line Press in May 
2007, and a chapbook Red Rooms and Others is pending from Pecan Grove Press. 
Her poems have been published in The Massachusetts Review, Rock Salt Plum 
Review, Third Coast, The Seattle Review, The Comstock Review, Seattle Woman, and 
the Cortland Review.
Poem
Levin – Carols – Junctures, 9, Dec 2007


"We Don’t Sing Carols in Our House"

Barnett, Rod

Review: "The Landscape Urbanism Reader" by Charles Waldheim (ed.), New York: Princeton Architectural Press (2006)

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