Sunday, August 23, 2020

What nature means to me : Yuyutsu Sharma Note on Royal Kew Gardens Collaboration

What nature means to me

Writers share the inspiration behind their displays dotted across the Gardens this summer

BY MERYL WESTLAKE


                                                                                                                                                        Himalayan peaks ©Andreas Stimm

Leo Boix

I live in Deal, a small East Kent coastal town overlooking the English Channel, where I swim regularly.

Nature, in all its forms, has inspired my poetry in unexpected ways, from the marine environment where I live and work, to the woodland trees and migratory birds I'm surrounded by.

This special connection became even stronger since I moved to the UK from Argentina in 1997, as it reinforced in me notions of belonging, exile, and fleetingness.

Óscar Martín Centeno

For me, nature connects with the human being, transmits its heartbeat, amplifies its silences. In the poem it is more than just a stage. It is the invention of love.

The photograph is of a crasa, it is a typical plant in arid areas, quite common in southern Spain.

I like it a lot because it looks like a green rose that is born in unsuspected places. I took the picture on a rainy day and the drops of water shine on the plant.

















 ©Óscar Martín Centeno

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

When I was young, my mother told me there were kami, spirits, everywhere. Sometimes, I sit still and try to listen out for them.

 


Jini Reddy

Nature is the living earth – in nature I experience freedom, belonging, repose, an unravelling, and often, joy.  

This is an image of the St. Lawrence River ( and the Lachine Rapids)  taken from the end of the street I grew up on in Montreal. Whenever I arrive back in Canada, this is the first place I go, and it represents so much: sweet memory and homecoming but also the beauty and power of nature. When I come to this spot, I exhale, unravel, feel free and at peace.

 

St Lawrence River©Jini Reddy


Yuyutsu RD Sharma

Nature in the Himalayas is not just a physical thing but a spiritual entity, Devatatma, a Sanskrit word meaning a place where soul of the god lives. It’s through the celebration of these magnificent Himalayan glaciers, named after divine beings like Annapurna, Lord Shiva’s consort, that I have been able to get in touch with the sublime and seek higher truths in life. 

The song of these glaciers that melt and replenish the granary stores of the Subcontinent bestow upon us a sacred mission to survive, keeping us physically fit, agile like birds, connecting our breaths to the colossal soul of the gods.

 

Himalayan peaks ©Andreas Stimm

Nina Mingya Powles

I took this picture outside a temple in Yunnan, China, in 2016.

The courtyard was coated in yellow leaves; the air was full of incense. Ginkgo trees are very ancient – to me they represent memory, history, and connectedness.

 

Gingko, Yunnan, China ©Nina Mingya Powles

Toni Giselle Stuart 

My walks in Silvermine have become about connecting to my ancestors, the indigenous ones who have walked this land for thousands of years, and those who immigrated here centuries ago in various ways.

In the mountains and at the ocean, I remember and feel, how I am part of something much bigger. This makes me feel held and safe. 

 

 Silvermine landscape ©Toni Giselle Stuart

Source: https://www.kew.org/

https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/words-behind-nature-means?fbclid=IwAR0nSnZPDeTYuXswXp8BO8hMpSayIEnNKs6bdj8lWZsZu9-0UImdjuVRCv0






Saturday, August 22, 2020

'The Guardian' feature on Yuyutsu Sharma collaboration along with nine other celebrated writers at London's Royal Kew Gardens!

 

KEW GARDENS

'A journey around the world': Kew Gardens offers visitors an escape

Travel the World at Kew series will showcases plants from 10 countries across six continents

Caroline Davies

Thu 20 Aug 2020 14.36 BSTLast modified on Fri 21 Aug 2020 04.37 BST


Children looking at humpback whale sculpture

Those unable to satisfy their wanderlust in these uncertain days of lockdown and travel quarantine are invited to immerse themselves in the sights, smells and spirit of faraway places – in a botanical sense at least – here in the UK.

From colossal Californian redwoods, those imposing ancient giants of the plant kingdom, to the balmy fragrance of Mediterranean rosemary and lavender, visitors to Kew Gardens in London will be transported to 10 countries across six continents within just a few hours as part of its Travel the World trail experience from next week.

The essence of a tranquil Japanese tea garden and delights of the Himalayan flora of an undulating Rhododendron dell are still within reach, for a tiny fraction of the real cost, with visitors’ senses heightened by accompanying prose, poetry and illustrations specially commissioned from talent across the world.

 

Sophie Rochelle walk past beds of asterids in the Agius Evolution garden within Kew Gardens, London.

 A visitor walking past beds of asterids in the Agius Evolution garden within Kew Gardens. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

“In a year when many holidays and travel plans have had to change, Travel the World at Kew will offer visitors a chance to experience the next best thing, a journey around the world inside the safety of our walls,” said Richard Barley, the director of horticulture, learning and operations at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

 

“Visiting 10 special locations dotted throughout our 320-acres landscape is a perfect way to reconnect with nature after months of lockdown.”

Kew’s Great Pagoda towers over plant specimens collected in China’s Sichuan province. South Africa’s bergs and kloofs are replicated in a rock garden stippled with cascading waterfalls. Eucalyptus trees arouse thoughts of Australia, as do spectacular mountain gums.

The monkey puzzle trees – “coiled succulent pine / with saurian arms, bony plates / on reptilian back” in the words of the Latino-British poet Leo Boix – are redolent of the time of dinosaurs. They evoke, too, Argentina’s “sub-Antarctic forests” and rivers of “the most radiant turquoise I’ve seen”, writes the Kew scientist Dr Laura Martinez-Suz in her accompanying prose.

Britain’s native woodlands of tall grasses, wildflowers and whispering beech and hazel are also on show. Meanwhile, Óscar Martín Centeno’s poem The dance of sunrise in the Mediterranean Garden is a dreamscape of flowers swaying in the light of a rising sun.

A centrepiece will be a large-scale humpback whale botanical living sculpture, created by the winner of the Netflix series The Big Flower Fight and on display from 22 August – 18 September.

The specially commissioned poetry and prose by literary award-nominated writers, with a strong connection to each country, are displayed alongside vibrant illustrations by artist Mark Boardman.

Visitors walk past flowering beds along the Broad Walk, Kew Gardens, London.

 Visitors walking past flowering beds along the Broad Walk at Kew Gardens, London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Writers include Joe Cottonwood, who lives in the coastal mountains of California, whose words read: “because a redwood with its power / will never preach / makes no demands / sips from the clouds / swallows the sunlight …”

The world-renowned Himalayan poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma has penned Rhododendron’s Suitor, which includes the lines: “an eternal lover / jilted by the silver-barked / suitor of the steep cliffs, / the Nepalese alder …”

Paul Denton, the head of visitor programmes at Kew, said the trail highlighted some of the “hidden gems” of Kew Gardens. “You can be reading a beautiful piece of poetry at the same time as seeing the landscape, so you can get a real sense of place and space,” he said. “It’s like taking the perfect holiday snap.”

His favourites? “I love the Californian redwoods. There is something about the colossal nature of these trees. And the monkey puzzle tree, which just has such a strangeness about it.”

 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/20/a-journey-around-the-world-kew-gardens-offers-visitors-an-escape