Bobbins: part III
a poem
I’m in my local library, where most mornings (in a room adjoining), there are rhymes sung and play for babies. Right now, someone is singing ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’, joined in by cries and claps - the world reminding me to send you this.
A few months ago, at the launch of The Fair Organ’s fifth pamphlet Wind The Bobbin Up, I read out a poem I’d written after thinking about lace bobbins (see here) and coming across the ‘torchon’ poetic form.
Torchon is a type of lace; the word is derived from the French term for ‘duster’ or ‘dishcloth’, owing to its durability. It is generally the first lace a lacemaker learns to make. According to the Poetry Foundation, Indigo Weller coined the torchon as a poetic form evolved from the sestina, where the first dozen end-words are re-threaded throughout six stanzas.
There’s something sturdy and robust in building the poem, reinforced and strengthened by the repetitions, even if they aren’t fully registered when you read it. I altered the stanza shape and embedded the end-words into different parts of the lines, woven and dispersed throughout. The repeating words (placed carefully in the poem six times each) are: in, side, dun, you, back, screen, window, evening, away, flat, sight, ground.
You can find this poem on The Fair Organ website here, the first in a series of REELS -offerings that extend out from the pamphlets.
If you scroll to reach it on the home page, you’ll see two more REELS, by Nick Granata and Nicola Thomas. Nick’s piece is wonderfully informative. They share some songs - ‘lace tells’ - to read, listen to, and sing. They write: ‘Songs aren’t as brittle as bodies, if you sing them they wheeze into life, maybe with a limb or two borrowed from another, so here are a few to have a go at.’ Nicola’s REEL is full of gems, too, as she shares traditional rhymes and puns in her family, including this play on body parts from her ninety-six year old grandmother:
Where can a man buy a cap for his knee,
Or the key to a lock of his hair?
Can his eyes be called an academy
Because there are pupils there?
A piece by Nicola can be found in the pamphlet, alongside many other brilliant writings, interspersed with bobbin drawings throughout. It is still available to purchase online. See some glimpses below:
Wishing you a good rest of the week - and see some of you at the Kitchen Litho workshop this Saturday ! I think there is one remaining spot if you have yet to sign up… more information and booking available here.
Hannah x