They walk on cinders
to crowd the banks
Britannia, Mauretania, Monarch
he reads the next place to step
on slippery green
throned on my father’s shoulders
he remembers the zeppelin
I remember him
we watch them cast secret concrete
through holes in a tin fence
Sarah Butler was writer-in-residence in Lower Belvedere throughout 2010. Her commission (from Bexley council, funded through the Heritage Lottery Scheme) was linked to a large regeneration scheme in the area, focused on infrastructure and public realm improvements.
Lower Belvedere, in the London Borough of Bexley, is a fascinating area, once a broad stretch of marshland, close to the Pleasure Gardens at Erith, it is now home to Crossness Sewage Works, a huge new rubbish incinerator, an industrial estate, and a tiny patch of precious marshland, some of which is designated a protected Nature Reserve.
Sarah worked with volunteers, schools and groups to uncover hidden stories about the area, and from this rich source material crafted four new poems, using a Japanese form of poetry called Renga. The project culminated in 2012 with a public art work, walking routes across the marshes featuring Sarah’s writing and an exhibition that toured local libraries. All of this is captured in a beautiful project publication featuring photographic portraits by Eva Sajovic.
Sarah Butler explores the relationship between writing and place through prose, poetry and participatory projects. Recent writing residencies include writer-in-residence on the Central line; at Great Ormond Street Hospital; and Stories From The Road – a project exploring personal stories of Oxford Road, Manchester. She has two novels published by Picador in the UK and with fourteen international publishers: Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love and Before The Fire. In November 2018, I published a novella, Not Home, written in conversation with people living in unsupported temporary accommodation in Manchester. Her new novel, Jack and Bet, will be published by Picador in Spring 2020.
Tideline captures multiple stories and experiences of an undervalued space in east London. Using the Japanese poetry form, Renga, I wrote texts based on stories I was told, creating four multivocal, co-authored poems, which were installed along routes from Lower Belvedere to the Thames. The work looks to represent the rich history and personal stories no longer evident in the physical landscape, inserting text into the environment which invites the reader to imagine and understand different experiences of the space and to move through it in a quiet, reflective, attentive manner.
Book Of Days, Linda France, 2009 https://smokestack-books.co.uk/book.php?book=28
Westpark development, poetry installations by W.N. Herbert, 2004 http://www.urbanwords.org.uk/aplaceforwords/case-study-westpark.php
Chris Jones, River Don installation, 2007 http://www.urbanwords.org.uk/aplaceforwords/case-study-river-don.php
