Warp and Weft by Carla Stein

I met Carla Stein at a poetry course, our instructors two laureates. A classroom of talent with creative and artistic passion. I was impressed by the dedication and commitment by Carla, as she was commuting from Vancouver Island to Vancouver. The value of the course was never in doubt: the sessions, the teachers, the class, from which friendships evolved — a remarkable bonus — along with a growth of personal output and calibre of craft. Yet Carla’s work stood out. The nuance of a multidisciplinary artist, one whose voice speaks in mixed-media, which emerges in breadth — heightened perspective, richer engagement. Visuals layered in stories.

Bill-Arnott-with-Carla-Steins-Warp-and-Weft

So I was delighted to receive Carla’s latest, Warp and Weft, a beautifully stitched chapbook of poems and paintings. The cover itself hints at the slender book’s contents. As though writer and reader are sharing a secret. Perhaps happening upon a serendipitous find, set in nature. A deer peering through forest. The first poem too, “Wind Warning,” both introductory and prescient:

can you build a house of paper bags & juice cartons –
a structure to bend with the storm surge?

I would invite ravens to enter
my walls & chase away mice

The title piece, “Warp and Weft,” plunges us into that landscape, that mood.

        two eagles trill-talk
flood plains interlace with
salt marsh treadles

Leaving me feeling that I’m peering over the artist’s shoulder: observer, observing, discreet and
yet warmly invited.

Approaching the book’s conclusion, the painting and poem called “Tribe” seems to speak at an
even greater level of intimacy, while at the same time capturing holistic inclusion.

my father spits pahoehoe
leans rock-slide limbs on a wildfire cane
adorned with galactic gyrations

The visual paired with this piece are an amalgam of subtle geometrics, soft angles in ocean-blue
tones with soft earthen greens. Inside of this an ethereal presence, a Gaia-like figure in crimson,
a sense of evolving, divulging, and creating.

Much like the process of bringing new art to the world, in this case in a compact presentation but
one overflowing with content, imagery, and forthrightness embraced within metaphor.

Hats off to my friend Carla Stein for not only envisioning but bringing to bear a lovely, new
blending of art. A genuine gift for those who enjoy finding treasure.

Carla Stein enjoys cooking up stuff like veggies, poems, paintings, and illustrations. She shares her poems and paintings in public, but the veggies are shy and prefer to stay at home. Her work has been published in anthologies and magazines such as Sustenance, The Starlight SciFaiku Review, Reedy Branch Review, Stonecoast Review, Pocket Lint, and Quills Canadian Poetry Magazine among others. Carla contributed to a renku in 2022 which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She’s an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and the current artistic director of Wordstorm Society for the Arts. Carla make art and writes poems from her home in Nanaimo, B.C.

Publisher: Tigerpetal Press (March 10, 2024)
Chain Stitch 5″ x 8″ | 15 pages
ISBN 978-0-9958639-7-2

Bill Arnott

Website

Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of A Season on Vancouver Island, theGone Viking travelogues, andA Perfect Day for a Walk: The History, Cultures, and Communities of Vancouver, on Foot(Arsenal Pulp Press, Fall 2024). Recipient of a Fellowship at London’s Royal Geographical Society for his expeditions, Bill’s a frequent presenter and contributor to magazines, universities, podcasts, TV and radio. When not trekking with a small pack and journal, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, where he lives near the sea on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land.