Saturdays at the Imaginarium

After a busy week when Father has been immersed in the news, Mum overburdened by housework, kid sister ‘menaces the mirror’ and brother is ‘bug-eyed with screen time’, it is the weekend. It is time to let the mind loose in the Imaginaruim so that ‘come Sunday/absolutely anything/could happen’. Welcome to Shauna Darling Robertson’s Imaginarium where she will introduce you to ideas, questions, possibilities that should not be… In other words she will excite your imagination exploring the ordinary so that it becomes extraordinary, playing with words, looking at the world sideways. She will introduce you to her ‘straight-talking’ grandmother – and what does that mean? To Wild Child who says ‘No’ to restrictions. She will challenge you to become a Poetry Guerilla, spreading ballads, haikus, triolets or to think what it might have been like before the birds took flight and then wonder what if… This is a collection to dip into and have the imagination fired up, tickled into life, curiosity roused to ask those questions that hover at the edge of the mind as one looks at the sky or hears a casual catch-phrase. These poems are fun – and yet offer serious thoughts. Imagine if… she says in the opening poem, and we are faced with seeing the strangeness, the absurdity of the real. Accompanying her words are the illustrations by Jude Wisdom. Nothing twee or poetical here. Her contemporary vision perfectly captures the strangeness of the imagination as well as the humour within the poems. There are gems to be discovered here. This is Shauna Darling Robertson’s first collection for a younger audience. We look forward to more.