Poet and photographer collaborate on ‘a quiet book for noisy times’
Ten years in the making, On a Benediction of Wind: Poems & Photographs by Charles Finn and Barbara Michelman is a sparse yet lyrical work, in which poems and images become reflections of one another.
The book is a collaborative invitation to listen to “the confessions of snow” and “the breathing of stones.”
“There’s a sense of mystery and something more that’s not quite reachable, and it’s what I see when I’m out there photographing,” described Barbara Michelman of her process when I interviewed her for Yellowstone Public Radio. “To try and bring that back in a photograph and to express—for lack of a better word—that majesty. Awe.”
“I put myself in the path of beauty,” poet Charles Finn added, “so I’ll be outside, and I’ll just sit by a river for a while or anywhere and just be very quiet and very still and wait for something to come to me.”
As Finn describes, “it’s a quiet book for noisy times.”
If you missed the broadcast on YPR, here’s the archive link.
