Animals Live in My Lungs
In early 2020 I was invited by the Illuminate Rotherhithe community project to write a poem about migration, specifically inspired by the Mayflower pilgrims, to perform at their community celebration later in the year. That event never took place - it was one of the first I was connected with to be cancelled by the pandemic. This year, Illuminate Rotherhithe came back, and asked me to write and perform a poem about this year's core theme - TREES. I knew I was set to perform the poem at the bandstand of Southwark Park, so took a wander down there to see what trees would be around us. It's almost all London Planes ; suitable for a festival whose core theme is migration since London Planes are not strictly native at all, being a hybrid (deliberate or accidental) of Planes orient- and occidental. They've become such a familiar and welcome part of the urban landscape of our capital that they bear its name. I asked Pat Kingwell - a man with extraordinary knowledge of Southwar...