Petrichor

— after William Barton ‘Petrichor’, didgeridoo, voice and strings. Soloist with Sydney String Quartet. ‘Global Ode to Joy’ series, YouTube, 2020

by Brenda Saunders

I watched Barton close up on this video. The emotion was palpable as he cried his song, In this piece he plays the didgeridoo with his usual awareness of living on Country. Once more he displays this rare gift of relaying to us an acute lived experience through his music. The quartet have an almost visceral impact. They add a depth of sound and clamour to the piece through the experimental treatment of their instruments.  

Biography
Brenda is a writer and artist of British and Wiradjuri heritage living in Sydney. She has written three poetry books and her next collection ‘Inland Sea’ is due for publication early in 2021 with Ginninderra Press. Brenda’s work also appears in major journals, including Australian Poetry, Quadrant, Westerly, Southerly, Best Australian Poems 2013 and 2015 (BlackInc), Guwayu ─ For All Times (Red Room Poetry 2020) and Best Australian Prose Anthology 2020 (Melbourne University Press). Brenda is a mentor at Black Cockatoo, the Indigenous Poetry site at Verity La.