ILLUSTRATION | storyartist

Final Dissertation Exhibition Piece - Worcester University

An Exploration of Storytelling Techniques in Ancient Greek Mythology and Contemporary Applications

Medium: Lino Print, Digital Arrangement

Lauren Child Poetry Illustration Prize 2018 - Highly Commended Top 12 Entry

Exhibited in St Pancras Station, London 2018

Medium: Pen, Lino print, Digital

Oh! And What Inspired You to Write It?

This poem was written
with the breath of an African
jungle’s lungs. Where the circle of life
is sometimes a squashed oval,
but slowly shifting itself out to rights.
A place where
slow words whisper
life into the strife of God’s
creatures.
As they lie,
unaware of
the small girl, hidden in the recesses
of drip tips and lianas,
capturing their pain with
a cheap notebook and pen,
scribbling letters onto a
piece
of the tree they used to live in.

This poem was written
in the hidden alleys
of a cramped neighbourhood
in South London. The crust of
the UK bread, that
you
pull apart and toss aside –
you feed this borough to the pigeons,
let them feast on its piles of flats
and chipped street signs.
Written for the boy in the
grey hoodie; the words ‘drop-out’
scribbled in blue Sharpie across his forehead.
Unaware
as the small girl with the
dashiki records his
hurt and lets God blot it all out.

Ink doesn’t last forever, you know.

This poem was written
on the back of a
napkin, in a diner as greasy
as the stringy strands on the waitress’s
head. As the
wrinkled stools yawn their
silvery mouths and the
aching lights shut
their eyes,
she
crinkles out, a back so weary
from holding debt,
the small girl can’t
help but exclaim, “It’ll be okay.”

Into the crippled ears of an off-white page.

This poem was written
in the white walled room
of a somewhat quiet teenager.
No school friends up here
for fear they’d laugh at pink cupboards and
stick-on flowers.
no school friends up here for fear
of them glancing over a mosquito-bitten
shoulder, seeing the poem
being written
At 2 and a half am, where the
silence is so thick and
raw, she almost reached out to stuff it in her
pocket, to chew on later.
Where handwriting doesn’t matter and indents file
their way in like soldiers of an army – and where the
only company is a fragment
of Heaven, written on the palms of my hands.

This poem was written
with the ink of the blood
given to me by God,
on the spare piece of paper
we all have, folded,
inside a zealous heart.