Shelley's Heart: The Death and Disposal of a Poet is a poem by David Scotford. It is an account of the death of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), who drowned off the coast of Italy. It's written from the historical record given by Shelley 's and Lord Byron's friend Edward John Trelawny. Scotford suggests that Trelawny was a bit jealous of both men, not being a great poet himself. This is rich and exciting poem, full of visual imagery, with evocations of the sea populated with Neptune's daughters and of Shelley's body burning on the pyre with an array of aromatic plants.
The embroidery panel is inspired by the sea and shows Shelley's broken skeleton - as the poem suggests the water and the sea creatures caused a great deal of damage to his body (I didn't want to get too gory). The silver and yellow fish are based on the Mediterranean fish sarpa salpa, sometimes known as the dream fish, and believed to be hallucinogenic.
David is a member of the Suffolk Writers' Group https://suffolkwritersgroup.com/ and won the chance to commission an embroidery based on his work in one of the group's competitions.
Picture copyright: Sew Many Books
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