A Birthday Garland, National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre 2023
For the launch of A Birthday Garland, an exhibition of word pictures by the artist Mary Kuper to celebrate the National Poetry Library's 70th birthday, I was commissioned to write the poem - The Mountain Myths of the Orchid Lady's Daughter - in response to Mary's work. The poem formed part of the poster, also designed by Mary, commemorating the occasion. Just before the launch, the library asked me if the poem could be displayed as part of the exhibition too which I wasn't expecting. And then for it to be displayed so large and prominently also took me by surprise. I was grateful and honoured that Mary requested me specifically to do this 10 years after the one and only time I'd met and worked with her previously. Especially so because I absolutely adore Mary's work.
Mary worked with the etymology of words, drawing on the many languages contained in the library’s collection to create dream-like images in which past and current meanings meet, pointing towards future possibilities. At the heart of the exhibition is a piece Mary created to mark the National Poetry Library's 70th birthday. The exhibition also gave visitors a unique insight into Mary’s creative process, as well as inviting them to get involved with writing and making materials to create and take home a ‘word picture’ of their own.
I combined responses to Mary’s work, both in the exhibition and elsewhere with events from my own life (my landscaper mother is known as the Orchid Lady in Ghana, for example) and my love of magic realism to generate the poem. The exhibition was free to visit and ran from October 2023 to May 2024.
