We are the bookend sisters. I am Susan Lee Kerr, the eldest and the wordy one. She is Meg Kaczyk, the youngest (of 6 of us siblings) and the arty one. We each made our living by our art/craft, and now continue to practice. So of course I turned to her for the cover of my new haiku collection, Learning to Leave. As I did for the first one, The Walk Home. This time there’s more to the story.
Meg offered me four paintings she thought could work. Elegy, with its misted blues, greens and whites, its dashes of red, spoke to me right away. It looked like they might be prayer flags. That incidentally resonates with meaning between us because Meg was widowed two years ago, tall banner flags part of her Joe’s burial ceremony. Bookend sisters again, on journeys of care with our husbands.
But there’s more! This is a story with layers. Meg’s painting was based on her response to a poem. She says:
You can see how I work… I wrote my own notes on my response to the poem. The watercolor snippet was a piece from a sketchbook (the whole sketch was of a boat at a dock with festive flags). That system was how I arrived at abstraction.
And there, do you see it? The poem itself is in haiku form! It’s by Linda M. Robertson. For ease of reading I repeat it here:
Searching for you, the devoted sun comes first to your bedroom window.
It is titled Elegy for Evan. Evan was Linda’s son, who died in a mountain climbing accident, Meg worked with Linda on a whole exhibition a few years ago. Meg has now written, and painted, her own book, uniquely beautiful and sensitive, Notes from Next to the Bed: a caregiving love story in words and pictures. For more on Meg, and Linda too, see Meg’s site here.
So, story within story within story, grief within grief within grief. As I say on the back cover of Learning to Leave, haiku (and here I add art-making) is a way. A way of life, a way through life. The 65 haiku in the collection catch living moments of the everyday over the last five years. For a free sampling watch this space, and jump here on this site. Or jump here to buy your very own copy, available only through me at present.
Learning to Leave is published, and haiku is a way — a way of life, a way through life. Restless winds, a vixen’s call, emptying packing boxes, kicking through a mood, a fingernail of moon…
The story behind the book? Life changing accident — we all know that phrase. In 2019 my husband had a simple fall which resulted in paralysis from spinal cord injury. Change indeed for us both, a forceful entry into a new world of disability, medics and carers… of uprooting from a home of forty years and ultimately reweaving the pieces of life.
Susan Lee Kerr’s second haiku collection, Learning to Leave, gathers sixty-five luminous moments — everyday fragments reimagined, life’s challenges met, where haiku and art quietly mend the heart’s tapestry, one healing breath at a time.
— Iliyana Stoyanova, President, British Haiku Society
Click here books by SLK for more details on the book and on me. To purchase, please request on the comments option on this site, or Instagram @slkerrcreative and we’ll take it from there.
Ahoy there! It’s August, butterfly time. Haiku? Here’s one I wrote earlier:
high summer the gatekeeper and the admiral come to call
That’s the Red Admiral, on our patio table. Do you know the Gatekeeper? A little orange-y brown character. And of course buddleia is what calls them.
That haiku is among 65 published in my new collection, Learning to Leave. Watch this space for the cover, and who, what, where, why and when.
Pardon me, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated Be Here Now. And they’ve updated the the dashboard controls. That white block needs to be a colour, and that courier font looks hideous. But you’ll have to put up with it for now. Learning curve ahead.
Fast Birds Tropical: ‘I know why the caged bird sings’
A bold Thames Cormorant, a Gilded Lion, a dappled pony, an adoring little dog — and my seventh series of Fast Birds… come and see at Open Studios this week! The gallery’s called Take Six, in Harpenden opposite Waitrose on Leyton Road. I’m with five other super creatives: paintings, jewellery, fused-glass and furniture. Come see (and maybe buy?).
All my pieces of sculptural papiermache are signed and dated, and labelled with a title and quote from poetry, hymns, nursery rhymes or… other. That’s because I am a writer as well as a 3D maker. They come to life! Of course you recognise Maya Angelou in the caption above.
The Griffin and I are pleased as punch to have been invited to join six other artists/makers in a pop-up gallery. It’s the first week — 11-17 September 2023 — of Hertfordshire Open Studios. It would be fab to see you in Harpenden, Leyton Road opposite Waitrose.
Seeding Sculptural Papiermache… will it take root and grow in Hertfordshire? I’ve already got two companion makers in a monthly workshop — watch this space. And see some of my pieces that will be on show here.
Newspaper, wire, cardboard, flour, water, acrylic — and inspiration. That’s how I made the Griffin. He’s on show this weekend at the Harpenden Arts Club Exhibition. Along with Lady Cat, Wading Bird and Big Howl. I’m settling in to my new hometown, and found this wonderful art club that meets weekly to learn and do art — watercolour, acrylic, life drawing, collage, more. I’m tickled to introduce this style of sculptural papiermache to Harpenden and the county of Hertfordshire. Secret smile — the inspiration for the griffin was the Fullers Brewery branding at the Hogarth roundabout in my old hometown, Chiswick.
Imagine the thrill of having an outstanding USA writer-blogger choose to feature your book. So there’s me, living that for real. Thank you Charlotte Digregorio, been following your Daily Haiku for years, a daily gift of creme de la creme. And for your comments: ‘beautiful striking imagery… fresh expression… simplicity, yet elegance.’ See more here, along with double-filtered haiku.
Hello! Long time away from my desk. But isn’t moving house a perfect excuse? Six months later, still settling into my new environment. At this point I’m calling it a Burmese Writer’s Block. Meanwhile Great grandfather Ephraim Epstein is still smiling down on me (I hope!). And Intersaga, the literary agency, has chosen to Instagram a haiku per month from my collection The Walk Home. Thank you Intersaga!!
In December, I planted this tree. Well, really, I was honoured to witness its planting. Along with a couple of hefty Hounslow workers who did the work, in the presence of the Mayor of Hounslow, Councilor Sam Hearn and a Covid-safe group of Staveley Road BlossomdayW4 residents. It was a wet, cold, windy day and a scrawny bare sapling… and now here it is, 26th April, abundant with blossom. It is the 99th Prunus Kanzan on this extraordinary road. Worth a journey, click here for next spring! (PS Don’t wait to discover the location, it’s a brilliant crimson sight in November.)
I was there as BlossomdayW4 local haiku poet. (For a different spring favourite see haiku update here).
Speaking of growing and cycles, I am soon to put down new roots, moving away from this place that has been my home for forty years. An adventure, thus far, in sorting, clearing, feeling good-byes at every turn, glad to be having this last spring here, yet also feeling impatient to start the new life in the new place. Before I was ten years old my family moved house six times… the impatience feels familiar. Will I plant a cherry tree at the new house? Or, like the one we planted here 37 years ago, a magnolia?
When people compliment the cover of my haiku collection I’m extra-specially happy — because it’s praise of my bookend sister. I’m the oldest of six siblings, the writer at the top. She’s the youngest , the art one, Meg Kaczyk I made my career with words — copywriting, feature writing, teaching writing, books. She made her career with graphic arts, and now with her own paintings, and teaching art.
So of course when I was bringing out The Extraordinary Dr Epstein, I asked Meg to do the cover. Besides being an art director she is of course a greatgranddaughter of Ephraim Epstein! Then, five years later, I asked her for cover art for The Walk Home
Meg’s own style is free, exuberant,with strong colour, strong movement (like her! She dances too.) She took up my request and a literal idea I gave her and offered me several choices, including several brand new works. Though I loved them, they felt too strong for haiku. Oh dear! — the internal battle in me between loyalty to my book and loyalty to my sister. Could I say no? I’m glad we are both professionals. I looked on her website (click here), and there I found the softer visual sound of haiku.
She now has a copy of ‘her’ book/my book. I own two of her works and now I’m saying to everyone including the Chiswick Book Festival, happening now online, here’s the art of my big little sister Meg. As well as creative bookends we are geographic bookends too — me in London, she in Discovery Bay near Seattle. Just all of the Atlantic Ocean and the USA (and our four siblings) in between us.
Be here now 