Words from the First Walk

This book documents the project Words from the First Walk. Over three days in late January 2013, a poet (Tom Lee) walked an illustrator (Zoë Sadokierski) and a photographer (Jacqueline Lorber Kasunic) around his family farm, Coorah. Tom described the land and named the places and things on it while Jacquie and Zoë documented, in their own ways. The party moved from landmark to landmark: bumping about in the ute, pushing through burr-starred paddocks, scrabbling up rocks scabbed with lichen, entering into and emerging from atmospheres of light, sound, surface and weather; always accompanied by the various non-humans that also lay claim to the land, always wondering at the different ways the land had been greeted and praised in the long history of its habitation. The book tells the story of a walk, in three different ways. The poet retraces past memories. The illustrator obsesses with the minutiae of shape and pattern. The photographer maps movement in the landscape brought about by farming practices.