Poesie Grenadine
I first encountered the phrase “poésie grenadine” in a French text book. In fact the full phrase was “la poésie du coleur grenadine”. From what I can recall it pertained to the cloyingly saccharine writing which can arise from teenage romance; the poetic equivalent of purple prose.
It has since become my online alias. This is apt as I write primarily about love and loss (and other “little l’s”); knowingly, willingly or not, I’m sure I often stumble into “poésie grenadine”.
The Cure for Love
The Cure for Love was originally the title of a community arts project to be run by the Plymouth based social arts company Effervescent. The project would culminate in an artwork made in collaboration with young and older members of the Plymouth community, on the subject of “love and loss, the things you want to forget, and how to get over a broken heart”. The plan was for me to join Effervescent in devising and running the project as part of my Contextual Enquiry Project (CEP). Sadly the project fell through, but the title stuck with me. Now that my writing practise had expanded to include embroidery, I had begun to consider ways in which I could assimilate The Cure for Love into this practise. I decided on embroidering shortened passages from my longer writings on love, complete poems, and found phrases, together with sewn illustrations. Instead of “Knitting a Love Song”, as the 2004 short film suggests, I will sew love poems, labouring (with love) over each stitch.
Originally the embroidery aspect of my CEP was conceived as merely a supplement to the community arts project. Now, however, it can expand into a much wider undertaking.
When I met with Ellie, the founder of Effervescent, to discuss my involvement with the project, she told me that she was “obsessed with love”. A housemate who writes a column for a gay magazine refers to me in it as “The Hopeless Romantic”; love, therefore, is an obsession I share with Ellie, and with you for the next few months.
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