Joanna M. Weston is a full-time writer of poetry, short-stories, children's books and reviews. She has published over 2,000 poems in magazines, journals, and anthologies across North America and internationally. Her publications include a popular middle-reader, Those Blue Shoes, and a volume of poetry, A Summer Father. She lives in Shawnigan Lake, BC, with her partner, two cats, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen-houses.
"Joanna M. Weston's A Bedroom of Searchlights brings to vivid,
eidetic life wartime Britain and an artist mother's gentle but
indomitable grace and pluck as a divorced, single mother in an
unforgiving era. Weston movingly weaves the Kentish countryside,
paintings and sculptures, childcare and courage into a tapestry of
flowers and aromas that enliven the reader's sensory memories.
Memorable metaphors conflate war trauma, poverty, mothering and
painting: "to shoot bouquets through/ a magnitude of armies"
(Background of Flowers); "she laid children/ beside hawthorn
hedges/ pulled them through/ with lavender lacing." (Missing
Children); "(she) ate gesso/ and layers of colour/ before she
turned pages/ sang a picture for dinner." (Necessities). Grief is
eloquently and sometimes obliquely expressed: "all of us/ loosing
motherhood/ into future wombs/ because we can/ no longer/ knit
children" (Thread of Motherhood) and synaesthetically: "sunflowers
tulips/ hang over her palette/waiting for red and gold/to cut grief
in half." (Two Ghosts). This poignant, soulful and tender extended
elegy plays the heart like a harp and lingers long afterwards."
--Katerina Vaughan Fretwell, author and artist of Dancing on a
Pin"In Joanna M. Weston's A Bedroom of Searchlights we meet Mother
who painted in oils, played a spinet and sang, embroidered her
daughter's dresses and fulfilled all her domestic duties
single-handedly after her divorce at the outbreak of war. Weston's
masterfully measured poems, create, piece by piece, a picture of
Mother as intricate and strongly coloured as the paintings on her
easel. Part lament, part love song, part celebration of a woman's
heroism in the face of heartbreak ... these haunting poems lead us
back to Mother's life but also show us the way women's lives forge
links to future generations. This is a beautiful collection which I
enjoyed reading very much."
--Pam Galloway, author of Passing Stranger
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