Gardens

Botanical Imaginations

Informational placards displayed in the kitchen garden explore connections across early modern texts (including recipe books, English literature, and husbandry manuals) and contemporary lyric (including Beyonce, Anne Carson, and Phoebe Bridgers). The exhibit explores the playfulness and utility of plant matter in the literary imagination across time and place.

Kale

Straight out of Kansas City, yeah we made it out
Celebrated, graduated, made it pass/fail
Sassy, classy, Kool-Aid with kale
Momma was a G, she was cleanin’ hotels
Poppa was a driver, I was workin’ retail
Kept us in the back of the store
We ain’t hidden no more. 
–Janelle Monáe, “About Django Jane” (2018)                           

Sage

Where being come, Instruction’s pleasant air
Refreshed my sense, which were almost dead,
And fragrant flower of sage and fruitful plants,
Did send sweet savours up my head.
–Rachel Speght, “A Muzzle for Melastomus” (1617)

Borage

Have you no courage?
At any time revive your soul with borage.
Sirrup of borage will make sad men glad
and the same sirrup doth restore the mad.
–Edmund Gayton, The Art of Longevity (1659)

I’m looking to cleanse regret. I want to give
you a balm for lesions, give you evening
primrose, milk thistle, turmeric, borage,
feet moving toward a language of trees…               
–Lory Bedikian “Apology for the Body” (2018)