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.