Words & Pictures #hollowofthehand

I had to review this new book on The Janice Forsyth Show on BBC Radio Scotland today.
The Hollow of the Hand is a powerful mix of poetry and photographs by PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy.
Harvey is best known as a musician. She has won the Mercury Prize twice and has released eight albums since breaking into the scene in the early 1990s.
Murphy is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker who has documented life in trouble spots such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Gaza.
The pair first met a few years ago and collaborated on Harvey's last album, Let England Shake; with Murphy making short films which sat alongside the music.
Between 2011 and 2014, Harvey and Murphy embarked on a series of journeys to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington DC.
It's not an easy book. Some of the photographs are disturbing to say the least.
Murphy catches the small moments on the day-to-day hinterland of his chosen subjects.
In the Kosovo and Afghanistan pictures, death and destruction go hand-in-hand. But there are moments of levity. Children laughing; a man holding a donkey's head which makes him look like Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.
In Washington DC, there is more saturated colour. It's the land of the free... a pair of gold blingy heels walk up a moving staircase, a child is dappled by sunshine under a cherry tree in full bloom.
Throughout it all, PJ Harvey provides a running poetic commentary.
It's an almost musical counterpoint which adds to the experience of looking at the pictures.
She never knowingly over-eggs the poetry. They have a sparse musicality and she paints vivid pictures with well-chosen words.

Like this one in the Afghanistan section:

Poem

And sounds of weeping came instead of music
And I walked out trembling and pushed my face into the soil
And sounds of weeping came instead of words or speeches
And dark evenings arrived at dawn and wailing rose from the village.

The Hollow of the Hand by PJ Harvey & Seamus Murphy
Published by Bloomsbury
8 October 2015
Hardback £45
Paperback £16.99