THE EIGHT [BECAME NINE]

Eight randomly chose people from around the world during lockdown; another lockdown. 

I’m not sure why it began this way. Maybe it was something to do with being sat, on my own, at home and unable to really see anyone.

So, I wrote eight individual poems that were based on eight well known poems that I felt eight unrelated individuals from around the world would read in eight disconnected homes. 

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The influences range from Benjamin Zephaniah [Mr Me] to Charles Bukowski [LINES; FOOTSTEPS; VINTAGE] to Dr Seuss [My, what beauties you are!] All words remain my own of course. 

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Given that I like to associate words with a given palette range, I then picked up the brushes and painted a visual representation of the poem, over the poem. Eight times over. 

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To me, it is about zooming in and out of any given character, seeing what lies beneath, what comes out in a binary perspective and, how it all comes together. 

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And that was that. 

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Eight individual meetings that couldn’t happen.

Eight individual poems that were written.

Eight individual paintings that were finished. 

The Eight.

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I then took a look in the mirror and eight...became nine