What the Water Gave Me
Poems after Frida Kahlo
Will be published approx. on 28. April 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
64 pages
978-1-85411-515-7 (ISBN)
Description
Shortlisted for the 2011 Wales Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the 2010 TS Eliot Prize
Book of the Year, The Observer
What the Water Gave Me contains fifty-two poems in the voice of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Some of the poems are close interpretations of Kahlo's work, while others are parallels or version homages where Petit draws on her experience as a visual artist to create alternative 'paintings' with words. More than just a verse biography, this collection explores how Kahlo transformed trauma into art after the artist's near-fatal bus accident. Petit, with her vivid style, her feel for nature and her understanding of pain and redemption, fully inhabits Kahlo's world. Each poem is an evocation of 'how art works on the pain spectrum', laced with splashes of ferocious colour.
Shortlisted for the 2010 TS Eliot Prize
Book of the Year, The Observer
What the Water Gave Me contains fifty-two poems in the voice of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Some of the poems are close interpretations of Kahlo's work, while others are parallels or version homages where Petit draws on her experience as a visual artist to create alternative 'paintings' with words. More than just a verse biography, this collection explores how Kahlo transformed trauma into art after the artist's near-fatal bus accident. Petit, with her vivid style, her feel for nature and her understanding of pain and redemption, fully inhabits Kahlo's world. Each poem is an evocation of 'how art works on the pain spectrum', laced with splashes of ferocious colour.
Reviews / Votes
'Their apparent shared sensibility makes the ventriloquism of these poems entirely unforced, and while Kahlo's voice is subtly distinguished from Petit's own, both women have a way of taking painful, private experiences and transmuting them, through imagery, into something that has the power of folklore. They capture the unsettling spirit of Frida Kahlo and her work perfectly.' Poetry London 'No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit.' Les Murray Times Literary SupplementMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Bridgend
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Poetry Wales Press
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Weight
101 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85411-515-7 (9781854115157)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Pascale Petit
What the Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo
E-Book
01/2013
Seren
€9.59
Available for download
Person
Pascale Petit trained at the Royal College of Art and spent the first part of her life as an artist, before deciding to concentrate on poetry. Since then she has published five collections, two of which were shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and featured as Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent. In 2004 the Poetry Book Society selected her as one of the Next Generation Poets. She teaches poetry writing courses for a number of organisations, including Tate Modern. Petit has read her work at many festivals around the world and travelled to Mexico several times to research Kahlo's life.