The world of form

Brimming with enthusiasm, information, quotes, and references, this is a pamphlet formatted unlike others. ‘She strove to honour what she loved’, and ‘The part of her head with a horse in it / galloped’ says Festing in a poem titled ‘The World of Form’.

The publication celebrates the life and work of Germaine Richier, a major figure of twentieth-century sculpture, whom Festing feels has not been given adequate recognition. The preface is a one-page essay linking Richier and Festing through landscape, gender, and art. The supporting text and poems themselves, switch between the poet and her subject. A sequence of twenty-five poems follows, each creating its own form, often by the use of white space and creative line-breaks.

‘Form is secreted by process [. . .] Form is secreted by experience’, says improvisational musician Stephen Nachmanovitch in a footnote

but the Valais region
           roused her
to create strange hybrids
darn space
               with armatures.

    [‘War’]

After the poems comes a ‘Timeline’ — a four-page essay on Richier and sculpture — and finally a page of ‘Notes’, which is in effect a booklist of further reading.

‘We must have the courage of our peculiarities’, says Marianne Moore, according to another footnote. In this pamphlet where format is interesting and different, Festing strives to honour what she loves and ends the final poem with, ‘You refuse to be unsung’.

Peter Wallis