A New Biography

Virginia Woolf exploded the genre of biography when she wrote Orlando published in 1928 changing man into woman and spanning 400 years of history in one character’s lifetime. Woolf  was an expert on the subject of biography and with Orlando, challenged her own father’s life work – ( Stephen Leslies the Dictionary of National Biography) She wrote a paper, the New Biography 1927 and now nearly 100 years later I heard of someone who is using another medium to record the lives of the women in her life, in quilt.

The two ideas  merged together in my head last night  and the outcome was this poem, written to commemorate Deb’s 21^st century stitched visual biography

 A new biography 2011

unlike Woolf who changed man into woman

revolutionary writing on the pages of a book,

she will take thread and stitch their names

weaving into life’s quilted fabric

the bloodline of her family

her manuscript, a quilt; her pen , a needle

her words, stitches ; a

material memoir crafted for  today ‘s

preservation

 great grandmother to granddaughter

six generations, named in silk

flowing down the cover

umbilically linked by thread

within each panel,  a life

perhaps a quilted  vignette,

a representing symbol, a corner of

a delicate woven christening robe

her mother, herself, her sister

 and in the heartbeat of the central  womb

her two daughters, side by side

equally loved

i thought white vaguery

but she sees life’s vibrant colours

the hot red touches of Africa

city chic colours of European living

the English Rose of the older daughter

the geometric designs of the artistic younger

perhaps her own creator’s cool blue of serenity,

at the bottom  white panels of innocence

just names , symbols yet to be traced

unfinished stories still to be stitched.

the incompleteness of balancing generations.

Later , the artist  will sleep, cradled among mothers of mothers