RRP: AUD $24.95 + $3.00 p&p.
Mountains Belong to the People Who Love Them
Slow Journeys in South Korea and Eastern Australia
By
Lesley Synge.
ISBN: 978-1-921214-87-5
A5 126pp
AUD $24.95 + $3.00 p&p.
Includes B&W illustrations and photographs
Synopsis
An Australian Buddhist mother takes her son adventuring to the deciduous forests of South Korea and, a decade later, to the Gondwana rainforests of Eastern Australia. They happen to be in Korea during the International Year of the Mountain (2002) and to be traversing the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests of Eastern Australia in the International Year of Biodiversity (2010). Lesley Synge’s message is to slow down and walk the earth’s wild mountains; it will make us happier and wiser.
The first part, Slow Days on Rumpled Mountains, is haiku-style poetry about the spring that Lesley Synge in English Conversation teacher mode, enjoys with her twelve-year-old son in rural southern Korea. The centrepiece is ‘Excursion to Jiri San before the mid-term holiday’, a prose poem about the experience of climbing Mt Jiri.
The second part, Slow Days on Old Pathways, is a poetic essay. A decade has passed and mother and son are traversing mountains in Eastern Australia during a wet week in spring. Their trek is across the traditional lands of the Yugambeh people on a walking track described by the Queensland Government as the Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk.
Striking photographs are featured throughout, particularly to illustrate the forests of Eastern Australia.
Mountains Belong to the People Who Love Them is published in 2011, coincidentally International Year of Forests and the Australia Korea Year of Friendship.
About the Author
Lesley Synge is a Brisbane-based writer who grew up roaming the bush. She is the author of Cry Ma Ma to the Moon, a novel, and Organic Sister, a collection of poetry. She says she writes ‘for service and blessedness’. When not writing, she teaches high school and helps individuals and communities to write their life stories.