Of Lamb mini-review and exciting news at Hugo House!

Lately I’ve been fascinated by collaborations between poets and artists, and none that I’ve seen is as successful as Matthea Harvey and Amy Jean Porter’s Of Lamb. It started as a poetic erasure of a biography of Charles Lamb by Lord David Cecil and became a weird and wonderful midrash of the story of Mary and her little Lamb. Lamb and Mary go on adventures, fall in and out of love and asylums; the pictures bloom out of the few lines of poetry/story on every page. A sample scene to your left.

Amy Jean Porter’s colorful gouache and ink paper paintings have a bit of children’s book aesthetic mixed with a touch of Japanese “Superflat” cuteness and surreality. The tone of Matthea’s work goes perfectly with the paintings, and the paintings and text work together; each lends the other depth and nuance. The writing is surprisingly moving as well as playful; the true story of Charles Lamb’s troubled relationship with his beloved older sister, Mary, lies right beneath the Mary-Little-Lamb trope. I highly recommend this book! It definitely expands the idea of what a poetry book can do and can be.

Exciting news at Richard Hugo House here in Seattle! Tree Swenson is leaving her post as executive director of the Academy of American Poets to become the new director of our own Hugo House! I’m very happy to hear this, and look forward to seeing in what direction Tree will encourage the Hugo House in the future. Congrats to Hugo House and I know Seattle will be happy to have Tree Swenson in town!