Paul Hogg
Original linocut
Initialled and dated
Numbered from edition of 15
Image size: 375 x 440 mm
Paper size: 440 x 640 mm
Contact the Studio on 0207 407 6561 for framing options and prices
Every print sold comes with a free copy of the accompanying book 'A Common Place', which includes reproductions of all the artworks and poems created for the project
Paul collaborated with the writer Sue Evans for the Common Place project
Sue: Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ provided our common place.
In earlier conversations Paul and I didn’t think we had that much in common apart from a love of woods and trees. We both liked paintings by Paul Nash, especially his paintings of trees - Menin Road (WW1) and Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire. Then somehow poetry came up and it turned out we both like Robert Frost. Stopping by Woods is Paul’s favourite poem. Previously I’d researched various words to do with trees, woods and forests. ‘Ghost’ came up as forestry term meaning a wood that no longer exists but its former presence is delineated by other phenomena, such as hedgerows, tree stumps, etc. I found the term in Robert Macfarlane’s glossary in Landmarks. Paul and I both liked the idea of ghost woods and I wondered whether we could extend the notion of ‘ghost’ to the written work as well as the print.
My poem - Ghostwritten - after Robert Frost - has the same meter (iambic tetrameter) and rhyming pattern as Woods but in 62 words. I particularly like how the poem and Paul’s print work together in terms of their formal underlying structures - the way he’s arranged his trees; the number of trees in groups; etc.
Ghost-written
after Robert Frost
by Sue Evans
Whose woods these were he thought he knew.
Snowflakes mutate to early dew;
Fleeting thoughts from long ago,
His reverie veneers the view;
When the woods once filled with snow.
To see what's here, what's left to show;
Under songs and their erasure,
And yet the easy wind does blow.
His promise keeps true to nature,
Trees now gone regain their stature.
