Mythology of Place - Homage to James K Baxter - © Lloyd Godman

Photographs of James K Baxter's Brighton Coastal Otago World - 1993 - 94 - Lloyd Godman


The main road to Brighton from Dunedin climbs up from Ocean view above the rock cliffs and banks that fall off into the ocean between Ocean View and Brighton and cuts though the neck of Big Rock on the top left of this image. The view from the top of the rock offers an expansive panorama north past Blackhead and on toward the headland's of the Otago Peninsular, and south to the  curving coastline  where the Tiaeri River meets the ocean. 
On top grows a Macrocarpa tree where in the 1980s some soul contemplated death above the ocean and then hung himself from its branches.
The view from the top is spectacular and affords commanding visas of the coast line both south and north; it is a place that Godman often uses to check the surf from.

detail of Big Rock Brighton Beach - from - Homage to Baxter  Resonance 3 - The rock, Prometheus, Brighton Beach 1994

photograph - Lloyd Godman - this is mapped, click on image section to enlarge or Full size image

 

Resonance 3

Exactly which is the rock Baxter called "Prometheus" is difficult to tell, for there are several groups of rocks that  become covered with sand for even years at a time before being exposed again at the wild hands of an ocean storm, or the bursting flood of water down the river during heavy rain. This rock however is more resilient than the others and appears more regularly. It sits closer to the water at the entrance to the bay and is less likely to be buried by sand and more likely to grow barnacles. 

James K Baxter - Poem references

The Titan   CP

The rock limbs of Prometheus
Lie twisted at the entrance to the bay
Like corroded Iron......

 



Think   CP

It is a long time since he brought
the fire of Zeus to us
Lightening our chaos, for many
aeons Hour by Hour the sea vulture
Has been tearing at his guts.

The Town Under the Sea   1962   CP

Kelp - bladders, tangled thrown
up by the cannibal sea


Letter From the Mountains   1968   CP

And the rock of barren friendship, has another shape....

Despair is the only gift;
When it is shared, it becomes a different thing; like rock, like
water.....

Tears from faces of stone.