Windows of Art

One of Valerie Laws' poetic innovations, the embedded haiku, welcomes visitors to the Knowledge & Information Centre (KIC) at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. The KIC is the resource centre where patients, staff and visitors have access to good quality health information. The centre offers access to a wide range of health related books and leaflets, as well as drop-in clinics, details of support groups, internet access and more.

Valerie explained the thinking behind the work: "The benefits of art in health are well documented and recently highlighted in the King's Fund initiative Enhancing the Healing Environment. With Window of Art we have created a unique installation that will enthral patients and staff alike. We hope that even in the saddest of times, Window of Art will help raise the spirits of patients who are feeling unwell or dealing with sad news."

The Window of Art consists of nine central panels featuring continuous lines of poetry and illustrations. Within each poem is an embedded haiku which is illuminated, using innovative electroluminescent (EL) technology. The four poems are interspersed with illustrations based on medical macro photography, which echo the themes of the four poems.

There are further details in the press release issued by Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust at the time of the official unveiling of the Window.

The poetic form used is the embedded haiku, a form which is Valerie's own invention: the text of the haiku (a traditional Japanese verse form) is concealed within another poem. Valerie wrote a suite of five haiku, on a theme which reflected the formal structure, and four of those stanzas were used at the hospital.

EMBEDDED IN THE BODY

A suite of five embedded haiku

I. BONE

We carve our own faces: our muscles knead
the bone that lives in us, with rage or joy.
As waves erode warm sea coral, planing
down its growing wall so emotion's tide
shapes our defences, moulds the skull
which holds our wish to smile.

II. BRAIN

The knowledge London cabbies have
gives them brains as big as the city -
the hippocampus coils its seahorse
tail in tendrils of memory,
a maze within a maze.

III. EMBRYO

Embryos live our evolution:
from cell to gill-slit minnow,
tadpole, yolk-fed chick, to furred,
tailed monkey; boy or girl, we told
our first story in secret, before
our tongue grew words.

IV. TRANSPLANT

The body stays true to the lost heart,
remembers that perfect fit of valve,
chamber, cell. Sedated, it cradles
the changeling heart, always doubts
the beautiful flushed fist knocking
on the body's walls, sharing its blood.