Dr Romola Parish is an astonishingly versatile character. She is a practising environmental lawyer, a poet, an archaeologist, an academic expert on the poetry of R.S. Thomas, and a committed Christian. She has just published two books, one the product of a six-month residency with the Oxfordshire Historic Landscape Characterisation Project, entitled Polygonia; the other, an astonishingly beautiful and moving series of meditations based on Christian icons which she has created through embroidery, Crying in the Silicone Wilderness. The icons work in a way similar to the Stations of the Cross, in that they provide images from the Christian story which enable reflection and meditation. They are accompanied by the artist’s own words, part explanation, part guidance and part her own thoughts and feelings; in addition, there are relevant quotations from the Old and New Testaments and original poems. I found the icons so powerful and so beautiful that the poems seemed a little like afterthoughts. Nevertheless, these poems, like those in Polygonia, are the products of a rigorous, occasionally playful, emotional intelligence. Dr Parish is looking for venues to exhibit these wonderful embroideries so that they can realise their purpose as devotional objects. I would love to see them displayed in an Oxford church or college; from seeing the illustrations in her book, I feel that they open spiritual pathways for believers and perhaps even more for the doubters. Oxfordfolio
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Poetry Owl 