As part of Monika Sosnowska’s Roberts Institute of Art residency in 2022, RIA commissioned Edinburgh-based poet, Anthony Capildeo, to respond to the photographs, sketches and maquettes that Monika created during and after her residency.
All photographs, sketches and maquettes by Monika Sosnowska
STILL VITAL
thunder has winded
plangent roots
thudding like hooves
hollow as brows
trees are brought up
short and broadfaced
they expand into filigree
their own geographies
and the force of weather
violence in velvet
and overthrown woodland
recombining like deer
and the eye translates
depth death
silt silk
brake break
as if wire salivates
at the sight of leaves
desiring to be caught
by richer dust
stay stain
reach out outreach
teach nothing
taut niche
only from silence
infer the droplets
numerous concentrated
of observing life
now a twig
now a finger
now a pencil
now a lens
time for a heap
a heap of detail
detail of decay
decay over time
a heap of breathing
images a heap
of chilly canvases
internal heat
then a walker
then a watcher
then compost
then hope
warm and gorgeous
what woods wear
pretends to be weatherproof
falls leafmeal
static without sparkle
heat without crackle
slams down a bundle
of granular light
scintillating decay
an amethyst makeover
charmed and allergic
mineralized eyes
and the wind translates
leaf feel
dumb mud
into a colossal lexicon
life pushes up
vacantly as buds
full without words
birds nibble
SOFT ASSEMBLAGE
stupendous detritus
making over matter
wolf-mouthed bark
morning-after fur
maybe it crumbles
maybe it swallows
maybe it softens
maybe you dive in
always as if you
have not got there yet
monstrous slow
slowing to want to
come splash your face
the undertufts
of upturned trees
want significant others
desperate softness
sharpens for your attack
mild and melting
mud tracks
what falls leafmeal
feeds trees
what wears trees
your mind like the wind
would you first
acknowledge lustrous
obstacles of trespass
invitation to the loss
as if a brush malfunctions
minerals fall
amethyst from eyelids
misting your lens
you are the peach
without the blossom
the skin without the milk
the change without the loss
what to do with your hair
when you go dancing
loose it lassoes
the limbs of others
you thought you stopped
you only breathed
like the rest of the trees
overwhelmed and porous
be not afraid
of murk dirt
sudden loss
and inconceivable reshaping
all energetic
essential insistent
instinctual openness
upturned in you
UNROOTED RIDDLES
I who churn metal
to milk change milk
to paper claim paper
stands up for itself
what power unmasks
beastly I seek
bison-faced trees
upturned from earth
I did have time
it died over time
reams and realms
teeming and woven
how do the trees feel
connection is upon them
destruction is upon them
hearing is touch
I barely said
show me how
you dance up a storm
when one descended
if the tree will not
plead I will ask
to wear all trees
as my mask
eyesight is touch
I sight I saw
I line infer
a world a whirl
I am the hard
of any feather
I sing the discard
of every shatter
anthropomorphize me
cellular structures beg
their fingers breathing
as evaporating cheeks
give me one cyclone
to lure one cyclops
not blind them
be kind to them
I was warm
before your face
became apparent
and my entanglement
I spin stuff
into stuff I soften
the name the secret
echo a stain
drawn am I
into an interface
with matter
drawing down
movement is stillness
I move in fur
I steal distill
vehement affirmation
giving woodland
my good boots
release my feet
they have eyes underneath
I who began green
and fruited ungathered
upset the myecelium
turned over in its mind