Thought I would share my latest, the first in a series of three poetry art objects made for an upcoming group exhibition called Bodies of Woven Code. This one is a double-sided accordion book titled Tiffany & Co pick holes in their reflections.
Unfortunately I forgot to take good photos of the detail before I dropped Tiffany at the gallery, but I'll post the poems below with a couple of in progress shots amongst the chaos of creation on my desk. The piece features two poems, Lark and Reasons to plant trees, inside an old Tiffany & Co giftbox with ink and collage. Materials include old National Geographic magazines (Feb 1987 and Jan 2011), copper wire salvaged from my grandfather's old electronics, silver leaf, cotton thread, gold leaf, and leaf skeletons collected from a river in the Far North of New Zealand.
Lark is a deletion written by using a soldering iron to burn out sections of an article on the decline of global fertility rates from the January 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Reasons to plant trees was inspired by a group prompt from the Dirty Thirty challenge to write a poem to your future bloodline.
Lark
At this moment
I want to say there’s a problem
it's only about 16% of the still woman in me or less
however, dramatically, the whole is on a path toward explosion
How much faster it is happening here
though it continues to grow home
a fifth of me is ready
and has been for nearly 20 years
the child me has fallen in
half the same still
I protect the right of this vessel to hunt
whose intense sound pulses have been linked to strandings
but is not the lone villain
a ship towing air, gun fire buried under the seafloor
oh to be heard hundreds of miles away, undersea
in the rising tide of noise – as is, simply
It doesn’t have to be lethal
to be a problem
consider the party that has to end
the sharp me-debate, security, and age
responses to a problem
that exists throughout the world:
will there be enough?
the answer is no
fall low, transition, rest
After directing the construction
of the highest geographic feature
in the 175-square-mile floodplain of me
I have a bird’s-eye view of the land under sway
of course, that scenario presumes
we know that which we don’t
we don’t even know the name is borrowed
the people who live here call themselves left behind
a scattering of meagre clues
The lowest C on a piano, I generate on most days
the bioacoustics of whales in coastal waters
one shrinks to only 10 to 20% of its natural extent
Lark studies anger, the whales who ping for port
and is listening from the years
continuous, complete
under colour animations of the show.
Reasons to plant trees
To my future bloodline
I am sorry
it is highly likely that you will not exist
I have nothing to add
just foolish wishes
to transmogrify
in the way nature does
so automatically it seems almost magic
the science of me does not add up
the way I assumed it would
my ancestors’ stories will cease to exist
as if I have killed them off
you who might have been will not be
I have killed you too
murderer
last week my mother said maybe it is best that way
deep down under the earth
the water tables have become carcinogens
the forests are burning
the atmosphere has a belly full of carbon
the houses cost too much to live in
they build them all without gardens now
I would have wanted you to know
the truth of swimming the river in summer
of walking salt spray beach in solitude
of planting a tree in your own backyard
simple basic things we have taken for granted
the way I might have stroked your forehead at night
and taught you early how to carry a big heart
in a little chest so no matter how heavy it gets
it can never sink you
it is an anchor not a lodestone
no matter how big the feelings get
they can never get bigger than you
see look at the way your ribs can expand
with every little breath
notice the clear fresh air on your face
your feet on the ground
of this green planet
in its precious endless blue
foolish wishes that defy all logic
and still I float them up like spells
every month and wait
if you don’t come to my calling
I am sorry
and if you do
I am sorry.