As part of the “O Miami Poetry Festival” the artist Augustina Woodgate has been sewing poems by Sylvia Plath and Li Po into jackets, shirts, and dresses in charity shops all over Florida.
She’s a super talented, cool, Argentinean born mixed media artist and “Poetry Bomber” based in Miami. What a pleasant surprise it would be to pick out a vintage shirt only to find a short poem sewn into the collar.
This kind of reminds me of a story a friend of mine Alice Maher told me once.
While she was at college she went working in a tulip bulb packing factory in Holland one summer in the late 70s and out of boredom she started slipping notes into the boxes of bulbs she was packing.
The notes went along the lines of “Please help me! I’m being forced to work here on 18 hour shifts packing these bulbs and my boss beats me…” Other notes were looking for love and excitement among the bulb planting community of Europe. I can’t remember if anybody actually traced the notes back to the factory and came to free her or fall in love with her – but I don’t think so.
Alice is now a leading Irish artist, so there you go. Find out what she’s up to now right HERE.