laid bare – A new art and poetry chapbook

I am really excited to tell you about a new poetry chapbook I’ve created with my friend the talented artist Barbara Brown.

Every once and a while, a project just comes together.  laid bare was kind of like that. 

Barbara and I had been talking for a while about combining her art with my poetry. Then one day last Spring, she showed me a series of gorgeous photos she’d made of leaves, flowers, petals and other bits of the natural world she had arranged and photographed in her magical light box. I was inspired!

A few weeks later, at her kitchen table, we spread out a selection of her photos with my poems and combined them together into a set of seven of each. In that moment laid bare was born. 

For once, we didn’t overthink it. We let our creative spirits lead us and this little booklet came together almost effortlessly.

The next step was to ask Barbara‘s daughter Willow Sharp to put it all together in a booklet for us and once that was done, we sent it to a printer. 

In laid bare, our poems and images are presented in a series that progresses from the spring equinox through to the winter solstice. The images offer a unique perspective on the world of fields and flowers, and the poems are thoughts about our human experience within that ever-changing space. 

laid bare is about the joy we feel on a spring morning; the freedom found when love loosens; and how sometimes, even the closest relationships unravel. More than anything, it is about the ways that light and perhaps love are “offered by degrees—in spiralled gifts of seasons such as these.”

ISBN: 978-1-7778787-1-9

published by wordsmith writing and editing services, 2025

$12CAD / $10US (plus mailing costs)

To order copies, please email me at dianeperazzo@outlook.com or text: 613 324 5179.

laid bare is our second creative project together. In 2023, we worked with Jess Weatherhead on the art and poetry exhibition, Sowing the Future: When Food becomes Connection.

Barbara Brown trained as a visual artist at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University and completed her graduate work at Manchester Metropolitan University, England and the School of Photographic Arts Ottawa. Brown has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, most recently Terrior: Belonging to Place at Ottawa School of Art and LifeCycle Conversations a collaboration with sculptor Cynthia O’Brien in Ottawa and Minden, Ontario. Brown completed a commission for the School of Photographic Arts Ottawa (SPAO), a four panel outdoor photo installation for their Photosynthesis Garden. This past summer she participated in Alchemy, an artist lead residency in Prince Edward County, Ontario focusing on women farmers and their regenerative practices. To see more of her work, check out: BarbaraBrown.ca