As I am editing the second issue of A Lush Idea: Culture Edition, the heat has hit London hard. My sash window is open wide as much as it goes, and there’s a cool summer breeze going on in the flat, with Jazz music caressing its objectless love in the background. Summer is here (perhaps) and we have a long weekend ahead of us. 27th of May is one of my favourite bank holidays: Spring Bank Holiday. With no significant history attached to it, and created by a few confused bankers (I imagine), the unglorifyingly-named bank holiday has been moved around for a while, and now sits on the last Monday in May. Often where history fails creativity steps in, with a laptop or a canvas or a phone with a good camera (and Instagram on it), to bridge the gap. But perhaps we got it wrong. Perhaps artists aren’t supposed to bridge the gap and be on the side of the machine. Perhaps they are here to stir up the vacuum, till it engorges clitorally and critically. This second issue of the Culture Edition is a curation of such brief rarities.
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01
In the heat o’ the sun life with all its natural elements become more vibrant, more imminent. The heat comes so close to our skin and makes it pulsate in clarity and sensation. This untitled poem by Lilly Driscoll, the London poet/actor/writer, is a balmy serenade for the sensual impact of living and loving, a textual macrophotography of the lover’s iris.
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02
If you think spoken word poetry is a “vulgar” or “lower” form of poetry, you have been mistaken, or have been had! The genre and its poets now have brought words to the borders of sublimity, where they tap the wall with the tip of their fingers and create a ripple on the limits of poetry. Just to let you get a taste of what’s on offer and the sky-high bar, take a listen to Dialactic Dee, the poet who does ‘swerve your bullet and turn it into sweet melodic poetry’.
“Bruh I opened the door and it even SOUNDED hot outside". — @KaiDavisPoet
03
Yet there is more to summer, and to the sun. Due to global warming heatwaves are becoming more unadulterated and sun more unfiltered. If only we could read a poem that corresponded with the corroding nature of the sun. Well fret not! We've got you covered. This poem by Meg Jam from across the pond (is Alaska across the pond? Geography was never my forte) is a story of wounding ... and healing, albeit incompletely.
04
There is a Camus-esque relationship between sultry weather and stillness. The new book by the London photographer Liberty Rowley (@FourFeetFilms) is a visual project chronicling the moments when The driver has been instructed to wait at this bus stop for a short time to help even out the service, which is also the title of Liberty’s book. Besides the gratifying aesthetic side of the photos, it’s really entertaining to look at the photographs with friends and try identify which part of London they are set in. You can also support the artist by purchasing the book.
05
Summer is the time when lights become lava and seep through the pores of things. If your nostalgic memories are set in the summertime’s dying sun, then you are not alone. The short film by Faisal Tre Shah (@FaisalTreShah) is not just an aesthetically refined etude in film making, but a charged ode to colours, to urbanity, to love. Without You, Life Almost Feels Still is cinematography at its finest.
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