Something marvellous has arrived in the post.
This is 'Sometimes A Wild God', a poem by
Tom Hirons, partner to the wonderful artist
Rima Staines whose work I've been following for about seven years now. I have a couple of prints of her work. This beautiful artefact, however, is a collaboration between the two of them.
I first came across the poem almost by accident, and it's rare that I'll stop for poetry that isn't spoken aloud, but I read it all the way through three times and then stopped and looked at it for a bit. There's no telling why some things hit you and other things don't, but Hirons seemed to catch on something that rings true. Something terrible and horrible and beautiful and incomprehensible. The kind of thing where it's more a feeling than anything you could put into words yourself, but when someone else says it, you go 'Yes. Yes, that's exactly what it's like."
So I bought a copy.
It came in the post. It's small, and neat, and unassuming. The paper is solid, not flimsy or cheap (as someone who draws, I'm a student of paper), and it manages to be professionally smart yet subversively tactile at the same time. As I say, it's nothing half-done, it's an artefact. Not just a carrier for the poem, but an object in and of itself, made with care. There are six illustrations, and the cover, all done by Rima in simple black and white.
You can read the poem for yourself
Here. Perhaps you'll feel the same, perhaps you won't. Who can say why some things hit you and other things don't.
