My series of artist documentary short films is well under way. Nathan Curnow is the latest focus. Poet, playwright & short fiction writer, Nathan has been widely published both in Australia & overseas. I met Nathan a few weeks after moving to Ballarat & when I started making these docos he was high up on my hit list.
He’s a husband & father of 4 gorgeous girls & it’s not difficult to see where he gets some of his inspiration. I asked him to pick a couple of poems we might be able to use in the doco & the first one he showed me was perfect. The poem Dead Penguins is an honest, accessible & beautiful response to questions his daughters had been asking him. If you’ve ever been asked huge, complex, unanswerable questions by kids like: what does death look like? if the heart is a muscle can you stretch it? and who collects the dead penguins off the beach? then this is a great one to read.
Another poem we used, called The Midwife, is full of awesome lines like:
She leaps like a turtle, swims like a victim
Can’t trust herself to float
She throws like a creature who has just discovered the basic mechanics of their arm
But she delivers babies
And sometimes a baby comes falling head first towards the ground
And she will make that catch.
So, if you have a spare 3mins 30sec, press play & get a glimpse of how this inspiring creative thinks, lives & works.
