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'Do you think we'll ever get to see the earth, sir?' - Sheenagh Pugh (p. 106)

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'Do you think we'll ever get to see the earth, sir?' - Sheenagh Pugh (p. 106)

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'Look at it as a happening, a moment;

let nothing of it go unrecorded,

map it as if it were already passing.

Look at it with the inside of your head,

look at it for later, look at it for ever,

and look at it once for me.'

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Exploratory write:

when the water runs it claps

On the structure

Half grown over

It sounds endlessly

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I sat here for twenty minutes until the place was exhausted by observation in my notebook.

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Inspired by An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris - Georges Perec

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This exercise helped most of all with experiencing my environment to its full potential by observing every aspect of this place.

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By the time I finished writing, I had discovered a richness in my surroundings that put me in the mindset to write and create more.

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The garden was founded in 1921 comprising of the grounds of four houses which are now merged.

The garden is one of the most diverse in the region.

(from https://le.ac.uk/botanic-garden/about-us)

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Edwardian gardens were characterised by the interweaving of the garden’s structural elements - herbaceous borders, carefully shaped lawns. Extensive formal gardens were divided into ‘garden rooms’.

I like to think the gardens mimic a house with rooms that bring forth different feelings and ideas - the modern statues perhaps appear as visitors or concepts with thoughts and feelings. I could base my poetry collection on the idea that each poem is a different ‘room’ in the garden. Green houses are also quite literally rooms and are a great concept for dividing poems by theme.

(from https://www.struttandparker.com/knowledge-and-research/the-strutt-parker-guide-to-edwardian-architecture-landscaping#:~:text=Edwardian%20landscaping%20trends&text=Gardens%20were%20characterised%20by%20the,ranged%20from%20formal%20to%20wild.)

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The gardens hold importance for me in my life as I would visit them as a child and was amazed by the sensory experience of the plants, nature, architecture and design. Personally, a big part of experiencing the gardens is about being guided by play and curiosity.

Exploratory write:

Maze

Tireless stone bars runs rabid

Endlessly

Little feet stamp all over

Stood by the bench when told

To take a picture

In my pink dress up I

Show the boy next to me one of my teeth

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(Running down the path of ideas)

Flat leaf vines and tiny florals that are wilder than the green houses

(How much maintenance)

Birch triple

Some parts are not contained (edge lands)

Canopies and lumping sculptures

Picnicking friends not in the rain (damp grass)

Ballerina garden

Some plump too

Little spins

A stone box of straight bulbs

October is like spring retired

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Greenhouses

Leafy hello on the wall like a plush ledge

Ivy says hi underneath

The house is white glass rectangles in perspective

Non stop

Factories for sun growth

Pipes and chains in innocent cream

Mosses pushed against the paint clouded glass

Warm temperate house welcomes you in

With a latticed drain

And neat little sandy stone pathing

Little bobble leaves escape from the corner

Watering layer on the stones

Water tapping under the pipe

Sweet greens in here

Need caressing with drips and shines

Baby citruses

Gel filled green pockets (what is the green cell here)

Seaweed green electric

And summer floral

The succulent’s purpose

Is to retain

People put in it’s retain in this house

Come visit and grow me tall

(Revisit: Chlorophyll, In the cells)

(From: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/chlorophyll/)

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Desert house

WARNING

the plants in this green house have thorns

DO NOT TOUCH

DO NOT RUN

BE CAREFUL

You’re sandy and large beautiful green

Spiked refuge

If I came across you in the desert

I’d have to split you open

Your climate fills my lungs

Hello princess arms in over growth and tangle

Suffering princess

Eve spiked too (girls suffer)

Cactus suffering from them selves idea

Dramatic waving and growth

‘Harder for me’

Buzzing death flies

In cloud unison

Spin so much in

Spike spirals

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This Victorian wild flower encyclopaedia endeared me and gave me the idea that flowers have personalities.

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Delicate Botany - 'Visit me and grow me tall'

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Delicate Botany - 'Visit me and grow me tall'

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'Maintain a minimum of 5°C (41°F) to prevent fuchsias, pelargoniums and other tender plants being killed by the cold.'

(From:https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/in-month/april/greenhouse,-conservatory-and-houseplants)

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Monthly gardening tips & advice - April - tender plants / RHS

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Need some help and advice on what to do in your garden this month? Read advice from RHS to find out how to look after your greenhouse, conservatory and house plants

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The names of many of the plants intrigued and inspired me and I incorporated them into my exploratory verse and plan to use this idea in my creative piece too.

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This page from the 1950s Good House Keeping collection at DMU Special Collections inspired me to draw comparisons between women and flowers as I did in my exploratory writing.

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Our tropical house is low and warm

And reminds us that we’ve managed to grow (in this climate)

Ones become so large and floral in basic terms

Others spill out in microscopic detail

Some bell gloves

Some violet sweet knots

(Flowers as women)

Coffee tropica

On your morning table pressed by me

Did you know someone who grew in a tropical environment?

Was her name Arabica

Or ginger girl

Or pepper corn

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Sculptures

Resting on structures

Based on skin

Filling, brushing the stone bowl

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This is my favorite sculpture in the garden because of its life like but also fantasical form. I would like to create a poem based on the idea of conversing with this statue.

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I am grateful for the ability to have engaged in active play as a child. This Fibonacci hop-scotch sequence belongs to the Fibonacci section next to the herb garden.

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I sat here as a child watching newts swim. The lily pads are so lushly green, especially in the summer but still so green now. I was unable to see any water life on my autumn field trip visit but the memories of the fish and newts are vivid.

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The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry, ed. by Harriet Tarlo

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The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry, ed. by Harriet Tarlo

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‘it is the language itself that
dances and defies
expectations’ (p.9)

'The most fruitful relationship with place seems often to involve a
degree of intimacy and of distance.’ (p.13)

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Imitates nature and creates an unconventional poetic rhythm.

Through Trees 1 - Zoe Skoulding

The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry (p.135)

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'And when it was all ready

they came, at last, to be masters

of it all; to take up the lives

mapped out for them.'

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'if I shout out,

if I shout in,

I am only as wide

as the world's aperture

but listen! if you listen

I will move you a few known sounds

in a constant irregular pattern:

flocks of foxgloves spectating slightly bending...'

(p. 21)

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'The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. Let alone the effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even by the tip of his horns would bear his weight; and this determined him finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved high enough from the ground to admit him. He had just inserted his head in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past outside on the turf. This time they were both young, a young man and a young woman. They were both in the prime of youth, or even in that season which precedes the prime of youth, the season before the smooth pink folds of the flower have burst their gummy case, when the wings of the butterfly, though fully grown, are motionless in the sun.' (p. 4) - The significance of place and nature in writing and how it relates to our live's experiences.

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My creative work could become a collection of poems based on place with a trio of poems based on the three different greenhouses at the centre of the collection and considering themes of growth, childhood, abstract concepts (like the forms of the statues) and metaphorical plant-based imagery.

I could alternatively create memoir-based prose about my experiences of visiting the gardens as a child through to adulthood and how perceptions change of place based on age and experience.

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Little poppies, little hell flames,

Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.

I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.

And it exhausts me to watch you

Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.

Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes that I cannot touch.

Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!

If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,

Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

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Veering: a theory of literature - Nicholas Royle

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Veering: a theory of literature - Nicholas Royle

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''Veering' is, among other things, a name for this strange power or weakness of words' (p. 35)

I write poetry to reveal a strange power in my surroundings.