There is Nothing in the Garden at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

Helen Dewbery

the dress

I can see why the Swindon Festival of Poetry organiser, Hilda Sheehan, invited filmmaker Helen Dewbery and poet Chaucer Cameron to present their poetry film, There is Nothing in the Garden.

To the founding editor of Domestic Cherry and the creator of 1950s housewife persona, Mabel, There is Nothing in the Garden would seem happily all over the woman’s perspective.

This year’s festival poster photo is taken from the film – the one with the checked school uniform-cum-housewife dress flying from a washing line in the wind.

I loved that moment in the film – the dress battered around, attaching itself to a tree, then escaping only to be caught on the line. Kind of an environmentally friendly American Beauty plastic bag moment.

I’m glad I didn’t see this in 2013 at Cheltenham Festival of Poetry; too close to the birth of my daughter. The image of the toy baby lying on a toilet cubicle floor alongside Chaucer’s words of the doubtful future of a newborn, would have had me in pieces.

Powerful indeed.

Written by Louisa Davison

There is Nothing in the Garden was screened as part of the Swindon Festival of Poetry, 2 October 2014, at Swindon Central Library. Visit elephantsfootprint.com