Appeal in Air
Davenport’s book-length poem APPEAL IN AIR is in the form of a spreadsheet that adds together a suicide, a list of bird-names and a valedictory roll-call of poets. By using an accounting tool for an anatomy of sadness, the poem questions the way that we place value in our own lives. Who gets overlooked, what is unheard, what’s too loud?
As with many of his books, the work was also reversioned as an exhibition – which became an exercise in composing with space as well as words, navigating the strange, zigzag aerial paths between mental health and creativity.
APPEAL IN AIR, book, front cover. Published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press, 2011.
APPEAL IN AIR, book, page detail. Published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press, 2011.
The city fits in the eye. From the little society exhibition at The Turnpike gallery, UK, 2012. Photograph by Julia Grime.
Concrete shanty, from the little society exhibition at The Turnpike gallery, UK, 2012. Modular poem made in collaboration with schoolchildren from Leigh and Wigan, Northern England. Photograph by Julia Grime.
Concrete shanty, from the little society exhibition at The Turnpike gallery, UK, 2012. Modular poem made in collaboration with schoolchildren from Leigh and Wigan, Northern England. Photograph by Julia Grime.
Murmuration dark, from the little society exhibition (2012) at The Turnpike gallery, UK. Wall mounted vinyl. Photograph by Julia Grime.
Murmuration dark, from the little society exhibition (2012) at The Turnpike gallery, UK. Wall mounted vinyl. Photograph by Julia Grime.
The poem begins with a pile-up of noise, urban overload, into which is inserted the story of “A”, a true story of a suicide, verbatim from an overheard conversation. “… a thought lost in noise sold as music…” The poem drowns in random information, out of which come soaring flights of birds – first in tiny letters, then in flurries of word/birds that fill the page. The final section leaves us in the big wilderness spaces of the air.
“ringin beyond yr ears/blackbirds in London/starlings of Manchester/stitch th blue postcodes of th sky…”
C is for concrete, from the little society exhibition (2012) at The Turnpike gallery, UK. Wall mounted vinyl and animation. Photograph by Julia Grime.
The little society poster, (2012) at The Turnpike gallery, UK.
APPEAL IN AIR, book, page detail. Published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press, 2011.
Dark murmuration, from the little society exhibition at The Turnpike gallery, UK, 2012. Photograph by Julia Grime.
APPEAL IN AIR is published by Knives Forks and Spoons press, UK whose list includes many leading British avant-garde poets, particularly visual poets.
APPEAL IN AIR isbn 978-1-907812-77-4 £12-00
Further information contact:
theknivesforksandspoonspress@hotmail.com