Book of Days

At the beginning of 2006, Linda France set herself the challenge of writing a renga verse every day for twelve months. Renga dates from 10th century Japan, when poets would gather together over tea or sake to write verses about the seasons, nature, love and the moon - the phenomenal world of change and decay. Adapting the classical Japanese form, Linda France has created a new one, the world's first 'year renga'. Friends, walks, the weather, things seen, heard and read, became her collaborators in 365 word pictures that bear witness to the flow of things, inside and out, the numinous and the everyday.Illustrated by Sue Dunne's striking ceramic fragments - reliefs created by casting flowers, leaves and branches found in the woods and hedgerows of Northumberland as a year unfolds - book of days is concerned with paying attention to the world, natural and man-made, its mystery and significance, in a time when the seasons are out of kilter.