FORTY-SIX VIEWS OF MONTLAKE FILL
An collaboration of poetry and sumi, this book by nature writer and poet Constance Sidles and sumi artist Hiroko Seki is a visual and poetic paean to the nature at Montlake Fill, a natural area in the heart of north Seattle. Read more
“It will be hard to put this book down after you first open its covers. Read on if you must, but take your time, so you can savor each evocative image and the writing that captures its spirit. Connie Sidles chronicles the Fill like no one else could, and her terse but rich poems perfectly complement the elegant art of Hiroko Seki.” —Dennis Paulson, director emeritus, Slater Museum
“The grace and charm of Hiroko Seki’s illustrations bring to mind the precise vision and the brush strokes of the Japanese masters; Constance Sidles’s verses remind us that ‘the poet’s pen/Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing/A local habitation and a name’ (Midsummer Night’s Dream).
“The ‘local habitation’ in this case is a landfill, recently redeemed as a natural habitat of the birds, plants, rocks and wayward apple trees that populate Sidles’s brief poems, where each element is given ‘a name.’ The result is a delight to the reader and an accurate guide to the walker who is invited to follow those paths — or similar paths elsewhere — and recreate the vision of these two fine artists.”—Joseph Butwin, professor of English, University of Washington