I am so pleased to return to this blog (after seven years!) and write about my poetry project that just been published by Inanna Press, The Negation of Chronology: Imagining Geraldine Moodie. Poetry has been such an important part of my emotional landscape. It is a mindfulness practice where I first need to pay deep attention to what I am witnessing and then be "in language" as I represent what I am feeling. Often this work draws from the stories of other women, biographies that are always fascinating and connect me to the lifeworld of others. The Negation of Chronology is just such a book.
It is an exploration of photographer, Geraldine Moodie. Geraldine, granddaughter of Susanna Moodie, was the first woman to own photography studios on the Canadian prairies and to create an extensive oeuvre. Geraldine owned three photography studios (Battleford, Maple Creek, and Medicine Hat), raised six children, and followed her husband, J.D., to eight different Northwest Mounted Police postings from the Prairies to Northern Canada. The cover of the book below reveals two of her photographs--one from her time near Churchill, Manitoba, and the other as a self-portrait.
The title of the book comes from a quotation by Geoff Dyer:
In photography there is no meantime. There was just that moment and now
there’s this moment and in between there is nothing. Photography, in a way,
is the negation of chronology.
—The Ongoing Moment (120)
If you are interested in finding out more about the book, I have included the link to Inanna Press below the cover.
https://www.inanna.ca/product/the-negation-of-chronology/
