Saturday 29 May 2010

Poem from What the Water Gave Me in today's Guardian

'The Bus' from What the Water Gave Me – Poems after Frida Kahlo is the Saturday Poem in today's Guardian. This is the title of Frida Kahlo's painting The Bus, and I wrote this in her voice, about the moments before the accident when a trolley car slid into the wooden bus she was in and she was impaled by a handrail, leaving her disabled for the rest of her life. The poems in my collection are all spoken in her voice and explore how she valiantly countered this trauma through vivacity and art. The book is available to buy from Seren and I will be giving an illustrated reading from it at the Hay Festival 10am this Wednesday 2 June. At 4pm on the same day I'll give another illustrated reading at the Culture Cymru stand.

Thursday 27 May 2010

Poetry from Art at Tate Modern - spring course photos


During my spring Poetry from Art course at Tate Modern, two photographers – Katie Snooks and Masayo Matsuda – took photos of us working in the Arshile Gorky exhibition. The paintings we worked with were 'Waterfall' and 'How My Mother's Embroidered Apron Unfolds in My Life'. The resulting poems are included in an online publication on the Tate Modern website. I'm now planning for the summer course which starts Monday 7 June in the Mona Hatoum installations in the Poetry & Dream wing: 'Home', 'Divan Bed' and 'Incommunicado'. We'll be in a different exhibition each week.