Jane Yolen, Elizabeth Dulemba and Atzi

Sometime ago, in the Before Times, Jane Yolen offered us a brace of poems to publish. Jane’s illustrator friend, Elizabeth Dulemba, had created a brace of beautiful images to accompany them.

We were very pleased to take them. How best to present them? Then Russell Jones had the bright idea of asking our favourite cello player, Atzi, if he would be able to improvise some music to go with them. Atzi has performed for us a number of times, improvising to images from the magazine, always to great acclaim.

Atzi said yes, and he recorded a few minutes of glorious cello playing for each poem and artwork.

Then the world turned upside down, and the files sat on the Shoreline server for too long.

Finally, I decided that they had lain unused for too long, and I created a short video piecing the words, music and artwork, and added a voice over.

They were played at Event Horizon Online and also at the online launch event of Jane Yolen’s pamphlet The Last Robot and Other Science Fiction Poems.

Now it is time they were able to be enjoyed by everyone.

Fill your screen, plug in your favourite speakers or headphones, and enjoy.

Noel Chidwick