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Yesterday held a wonderful afternoon of poetry with the brilliant Mike Ladd and Rachael Mead, bookended with music by classical guitarist Alain Valodze.

Part of the annual Nature Festival, the event was held in Prospect Community Garden, with Mike and Rachael taking turns to read poems that either responded to each other’s or continued the thread in some way.

Both shared pieces that focused on place, belonging and home. Mike read ‘What the creek said’ and spoke about water having legal rights, alongside poems about his mother, flying in over the Coorong from the Eastern states and ‘Black Swans Mating’ from his collection Invisible Mending published by Wakefield Press to illustrate how nature never fails to surprise. Rachael fell back to the days of walking down Rundle Street with her dad when she was a young girl, then fast forward to turning 13 in the year Return of the Jedi hit screens, living in a bushfire zone and one of my favourite poems from her collection The Flaw in the Pattern (UWA Publishing) called ‘The dog, the blackbird and the anxious mind’.

Both are passionate about the environment and draw attention to the damage being inflicted and the beauty it offers regardless. Paired with fruit and cheese platters and Alain’s dulcet tones, who’s featured at WOMADelaide no less, all in an abundant garden, it really was a wonderful afternoon well spent.