Patchwork Poem Project, 2013

Bristol Poetry Institute, fundraising for the

Alzheimer’s Society

The poem itself – a collection of words with rhythms and meanings and metaphors – will emerge in the form of a patchwork of words put together and collectively re-arranged into something resembling a poetry.

Responding to the connection between production and poetry – poiēsis –this project is about making poetry. 

The aim is to make a poem a tangible object. 

Textile asks for a different way of reading, a different way of writing, a different way of making meaning

Image by Dominique Browning, slowlovelife.com

My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind. You heavenly powers, since you were responsible for those changes, as for all else, look favourably upon my attempts, and spin an unbroken thread of verse, from the earliest beginnings of the world, down to my own times ... Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.1-5, translated by Mary Innes

Quaker Tumbling Block Star Quilt, created by Dr. Sarah Taylor Middleton Rogers, New Jersey (1852) from the American Museum, Bath

I said to Poetry: “I’m finishedwith you.’Having to almost diebefore some weird lightcomes creeping through is no fun.‘No thank you, Creation,no muse need apply.I’m out for good times –at the very least,some painless convention.

Poetry laid backand played dead.until this morning ...

Alice Walker, from I Said To Poetry

adire eleko, Nigeria, c1970s (women’s wrap dress), from the Textile Museum of Canada, (ID T94.2139)

it is simple

do not strive topaintdo not strive toritedo not strive forpostiondo not strive forrewardsdo not strivefor powerdo not strivefor loveun-do paintingun-do ritingun-do life

Billy Childish, from the 1st green horse god has ever made poems 1996-2004

Rugged up for winter snowyou have put your bodies where your hearts are ...against the gates and under the wheels of war.

...

Like you we siton the doorstep of the world’s end and will not look away.The people long to knowsomething is indestructible.It may only be you

Wendy Poussard, Greenham Woman

From Greenham Common Peace Camp, 1981-2000 (image from radicalcrossstitch.com)

... Joy and Woe are woven fine,A Clothing for the Soul divineUnder every grief & pineRuns a joy with silken twine...

William Blake, from Auguries of Innocence

Newport Froliking People Sampler, created by Hannah Taylor, Rhode Island, 1774, from the American Museum, Bath

This is really the story of asista who was very too-ge-

thain everythang but life. Yousee she was so too-ge-tha

she had nothang butstrife. Everyone thought

because she was sotoo-ge-tha she didn’t

feel pain ...

... She finallyconcluded there’s no earthly

use in bein too-ge-thaif it don’t put some

joy in yolife.

Sherely Anne Williams, The House of Desire.

Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle Action, Footscray, Melbourne 2008, from radicalcrossstitch.com

My reason which was once severed,Cut into unconscious divisions,Hidden in maladroit madness;Is now returning with a bounce.Welcoming the spring’s green treesWhich promise a new soundness of mind And a new beginning from the little I have left.

Margot Jordan, Hidden Reason

Cynon Valley Tapestry, Aberdare c2000, from the National Needlework Archive

Endless unfolding of words of ages! And mine a word of the modern, the word En-masse.

A word of the faith that never balks.Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.

Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself , 23.

Image from http://www.loominous.co.uk/

I'm not going to cry all the timenor shall I laugh all the time,I don't prefer one "strain" to another.I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,not just a sleeper, but also the big,overproduced first-run kind. I want to beat least as alive as the vulgar. And ifsome aficionado of my mess says "That'snot like Frank!", all to the good! Idon't wear brown and grey suits all the time,do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,often. I want my feet to be bare,I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, butthe better part of it, my poetry, is open. 

Frank O’Hara, My Heart

from Knitting With Nietzsche, Bristol 2013

I handed my teacher a poem,‘This is not a poem,’ he said.‘It has no form,Your lines are unpoetic.Silence is nearer to truthThan your written thoughts are to verse.’Feeling I had betrayed my learningI laboured through the years to perfect my styleWishing for the day when my teacher Would recognise me as a poet.Now I have little conversation leftI wonder if I handed this poem to himWould my teacher clasp me to his breastOr who he send me backwards in my craftWith the proclamation:‘Silence is nearer to truthThan your written thoughts are to verse.’

Margot Jordan, Silence is Nearer to Truth

Radical Hospitality (patchwork quilt), by Jemima Wyman (2012) from Piecing Together Core Concerns, Brisbane

... I love you. I love you,but I’m turning to my versesand my heart is closinglike a fist.

Words! besick as I am sick, swoon,roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare downat my wounded beautywhich at best is only a talentfor poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or winwhat a poet!and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.I embrace a cloud,but when I soaredit rained....

Frank O’Hara ,from Mayakovsky

Sheila Pepe, Bus Lines, 2006 World Financial Plaza, New York

Three Women, dressed in white, wreathes around their heads. Three women, sitting spaced around a spindle.Three Women, the Fates – Daughters of Necessity –Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos. Three Women, they sang in harmony with the Sirens.

Lachesis singing of the things that were,Clotho of the things that are,and Atropos, the things that are yet to come.

Plato, The Republic X. 617c