Description
ISBN 978-1-912616-14-5 | Poetry | Tile (175mm x 160mm), Paperback, 72pp
The Dropping of Petals examines the relationship of land with language, working in the space between materiality and semiosis to explore the tension between ‘lore’ and ‘law’. The texts and images convey this in a merging of concrete and concept. They challenge whether lore — knowledge of the land, grown from our relationship with it — is less folk lore and myth, and more the ecological, muddy reality of it, than the black letter law of the land.
‘Being with trees is no metaphor, as no garden can be walled, in O’Toole’s poetry: her beautiful and visceral language “shimmers between” layered traces of land, “a transmissive thoroughfare of perpetual exchange and interchange.”’
— Jonathan Skinner
‘This is poetry and poetics utterly invested in the fleshly history of words and their radial connections to land. No slip, sound or event of language is taken for granted in these critically rich and beautiful scores. You learn, breathe and think through these extraordinary pages.’
— Holly Pester
‘A stunningly original collection of work: deep-rooted, instinctual and forged from soil-worn hands. Quite delightful.’
— James Canton