SEVEN LEAF SERMONS
with artwork by Rupert Loydell

Seven Leaf Sermons began as a response to a painting by the poet and artist Rupert Loydell for Stride Magazine. The rules stipulated by Loydell included that poems should consist of 15 lines, with each line containing 10 words. Peter Larkin developed his response into this 7-poem sequence, which appears here alongside the Leaf Sermon paintings by Loydell.

Larkin is a poet alive to the beauty of sonic patterns and pairings (‘trust insurrectional’; ‘green machine’), knowing well that such lines reach in their awkward, jagged beauty beyond the mere think-able into the world of feeling, spirit and co-existence that he explores in these ‘sermons’. A great introduction to Larkin if you don’t know him, and a lovely addition to your collection if you do.
Harriet Tarlo

Peter Larkin contributed to The Ground Aslant: an Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry, ed. Harriet Tarlo (2011). Among his more recent poetry collections are City Trappings (Housing Heath or Wood)  (2016) and Introgression Latewood (2017).  A symposium on his work was held at Warwick University (UK) in 2018, the proceedings to appear in the Journal of British & Irish Innovative Poetry. A new collection, Trees Before Abstinent Ground was published in late 2019.

Rupert Loydell is an artist, poet and university lecturer currently living in Cornwall. See more of his art here.

Seven Leaf Sermons is printed on Mohawk Superfine and Gmund Bier papers
Pamphlet / 20pp / 140 x 210mm / 7 poems & 7 paintings / Colour
ISBN: 978-1-913749-02-6