Seeds of Another Summer: Finding the Spirit of Home in Nature

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

The boundaries between poetry and prose are blurred by Powning’s text,
and the crossover point between photography and art is shifted by her
camera work. Seeds of Another Summer is an exploration of humans living
with nature—or of nature interacting with humans. The setting is rural
New Brunswick, but that’s irrelevant: the themes could be played out
wherever people and nature meet.

Powning’s dominant photographic style is to push the close-up to new
dimensions. At times she seems to enter her subjects, to blend with
their life force. Then, without warning, she draws back, also to the
extreme, conveying the feeling that she is looking at the earth from a
great distance. Whether in words or in photos, she explores her
connectedness to the land, as well as to the seasons as they dance over
and transform the land.

At times the work is puzzling, raising questions to which there are no
answers, leaving us alone in the presence of forces that are so great
that we have no choice but to face our intrinsic humbleness. It’s as
if the author wants to show us these mysteries, but is not prepared to
become our guide while we grapple with them.

The book is a celebration of the interface between humans and nature.
It is the odyssey of a search for home, of encountering “the cold edge
of unknowing” and arriving at a place where “I open my hands and let
another day fly free.”

While defying classification, Seeds of Another Summer promises a feast
for the mind and a measure of tranquility for the spirit.