Mixed Borders (4): The London Open Garden Squares Weekend

On Saturday 13 June I gave two readings of my four poems for Red Cross Garden, at the little bandstand in the garden. There were about ten people at each reading - a few friends, and other members of the public, and everyone's attendance was much appreciated. The weather wasn't amazing (a bit cool, cloudy and breezy, though fortunately the few drops of rain cleared up) but we all know it could have been a lot worse...and the sun came out later in the afternoon.

My four poems were 'The Octavia Hill Rose', 'Bobby', 'Restoration' and 'Sherlock Holmes in Red Cross Garden'. I'm not going to post any of them on the blog for now, but watch this space, as one or two of them will be appearing elsewhere in future and I will link to them then.

I was happy that I was able to write about the garden from a few different angles, and the poems all had somewhat different styles, which seemed to fit. 'The Octavia Hill Rose', about the garden's founder, went into sonnet form, perhaps a nod to the more formal Victorian times she belonged to. The other poems all varied in style, but a poet friend who came to one of the readings told me that at the same time they were all quite recognisably from the same voice, which was lovely to hear.

I hope to continue my relationship with Red Cross Garden to a certain extent - they have asked me if I can read the poems again at their Vegetable and Flower Show later this year, which makes me feel like a real poet in residence. They may also be using the poems in other interesting ways, but these are TBC for now.

Here are a couple of photos from the two readings:

On Sunday a friend and I managed to visit some other gardens in Bloomsbury and the City. Near Barbican, I went to Fann Street Wildlife Garden, where Stephanie Norgate was in residence, and Postman's Park, where Ann Perrin was the resident poet. Later I also made it to Nomura - resident poet Julia Bird had gone home after a long weekend in the manicured rooftop garden, but I certainly loved the views.

Resident poet Ann Perrin in Postman's Park

Resident poet Stephanie Norgate in Fann Street Wildlife Garden

Poets After Dark/Light Show at the Hayward Gallery: This Is Your Brain On Poetry and Art

Hayward Gallery, London, Southbank. Photo by Aurelien Guichard. Used under Creative Commons license



On Monday night I went to the Light Show exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank - which on Monday and Tuesday was also the setting for Poets After Dark, where ten poets commissioned to write about some of the artworks read their poems. (You can find pictures from the show, and more information, at Hayward Light Show.)

I carried away a medley of impressions. There were moments when I thought the concept wasn't working that well, and others when I was completely caught up in the experience. I suspect that a certain amount of adjustment was required. I am much more used to experiencing art on its own, or poetry on its own (whether at a reading, or reading it on my own) - not the two at the same time, and I occasionally felt what I think was mild sensory overload. In at least some cases, though, the art/poetry interaction was one I wouldn't have missed.

The experience felt like being in a sort of poetic funhouse. There were moments, amidst the dark rooms, the mirrors and the strobe lights, and the poems, where I expected the floor to move beneath my feet. I was intrigued to hear Kate Tempest read, alongside Leo Villareal's cascading column of light, Cylinder II - her poem was one which closely observed the reactions of people she had watched as they looked at the artwork, as well as her own reactions. Kate Tempest  has just won the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for new poetry, for her work Brand New Ancients - she falls into the "spoken word artist" area of poetry, which is not (so far) entirely my cup of tea, but her passion was fascinating. I loved Amjad Nasser's poem (which he read in Arabic, followed by an English translation) about the death of a family member and exploring related concepts of light, but I was unsure whether the accompanying artwork did much for me. Mimi Khalvati read a very sensuous poem amidst the strobe lights of Olafur Eliasson's Model for a Timeless Garden, where fountains and water jets froze moment by moment into peaks and arcs of ice - overwhelming, but fantastic. I also felt that Sam Riviere's poems, which explored visions of a city through the filter of the digital age, worked remarkably well alongside the whirling shadow-cubes of the artwork by Conrad Shawcross. (Riviere referred to it as "the room of feeling increasingly sick", and I can confirm that I almost fell over when I walked through the door.)

You can read the poems and some comments from Julia Bird and Tamar Yoseloff, two of the poets who participated, on this link: http://www.poetryschool.com/news/poets-after-dark.php