Anji Russell
Poetry and Design

As I wrote and illustrated ‘Voices in the Wilderness’, a collection of forty narrative poems about the lives of Old Testament women, I endeavoured to recognise their wilderness moments. Within these ancient accounts, where silences invited further contemplation, I entered their lives as deeply as I could, to see through their eyes, to feel their hope. Seeking to remain faithful to the biblical narrative and to Jewish tradition, I allowed imagination to walk alongside truth. At times, I felt I was no longer simply writing about these remarkable women, but speaking from within their lives.

Upon finishing the narrative poems, I realised I had uncovered pivotal moments at the core of each story. I drew closer, realising that these pivotal moments were the gathering of each woman’s life into an emotional heart, the true kernel of their story. The term ‘kernel’ speaks of the hidden centre, the essence, the heart from which all else grows.  It was into these kernels that I ventured further. 

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The shorter poems within this 'Voices of Hope' collection are these very kernels - the distilled heart retrieved from the longer poems, the emotional centre, the true kernel of hope. They are the passages that lingered with me long after the narrative poems were finished, the evidence of hope found or lost.

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On occasion, I have reshaped a word or phrase but never in a way that alters the essential spirit of the original kernel which was buried in the longer narrative waiting to be found. While retrieving each ‘kernel of hope’ I also uncovered a deeper, quieter ‘message of truth’ that each woman left from her life and wilderness experience.

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The poems with a yellow marking indicate the women who were in the lineage of Jesus, part of what I have called the 'Golden Thread'. Those with a black marking indicate those whose hope was lost or stolen. Beneath the last line of each poem is written its message of truth.