Leena Batchelor’s Poet Laureate collection of poems, Pearl Blades and Painted Silks: The Language of Fans is a celebration of poetry written in her Worcestershire Poet Laureate year.
Leena Batchelor holds a fascination for fans. The former Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2020-2021 celebrates her tenure, and the beauty of fans, the blades and silks, tassels and glorious artwork they often hold. She describes the meanings of the ways in which they’re held, the waves, flutters, closures and expansions, and the impact that these movements can have. Leena says that this is like a daydream to her, ‘I’ve always wanted to write a collection of poems about the language of fans.’
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Neil Leadbetter has reviewed Leena’s collection for Ink Pantry. Here’s an extract:
‘The collection is divided into two parts; the first presents fans across ages and continents which is interspersed with some of Batchelor’s personal memories of dressing up amid her grandmother’s collection of fans, silk Chinese dresses and lace Victorian outfits, and the second presents the stories of the 1860s lady from debutante to dowager through the language of her fans.’ To read more, click here.
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