seed was shown in the Makerspace at Portland Works Sheffield as part of the Irish Connections exhibition (2017)  Seed is an installation piece using collage, text, and soil.  The piece hangs 15 foot although it appears to grow from the ground.  See the poem transcript below written by Mary Sewell.

This work is included in the LibraryX publication WordPower: Language as Medium compiled and edited by Sarah Peace. https://libraryx.org.uk/wordpower-language-as-medium/

published by Open City Designs on-line publication.  https://opencitydesign.com/2017/01/13/the-forge/

 

These

words

start from the ground,

deep in the earth where it is dark and quiet.

Waiting still

In the dark.

A sigh

and a wiggle of the toes

but still

in the dark!

Listening

for sounds that may

or may not grow

into a symphony….perhaps.

Still, in the dark,

Winter cold eats into toes that feel the deep dark soil

that catches between them like sand on a beach,

scratching a sound in the dark.

Waiting still, in the dark,

Asleep in the comfort of velvet soil,

warm and soft where the wood sap seeps.

Why would any seed want to grow?

But growing

is,

swelling, resting, resting, resting, gaining, moving, pushing,

call it what you will…

Moving through and up and out…

What could stop it?

Still in the dark

Then

when comfort’s seen

it slaps the face

like an old wet fish

and anger roars from its slumber,

thrashing and howling like a small child that doesn’t know what anger is.

And so words

grow like body or mind, out of the ground and from that darkness into

light.

                                                                                             Mary Sewell 2017