Ladder Forms

Making ladder forms in some way represents a kind of taking stock, a way of making pause in the proceedings of life. Acting as kind of drawbridge, or hinge between what has passed and what has yet to come, I have found, through the process of making these forms, glimpsed moments of recovery in which I have drawn on but also been ‘haunted’ by everything that has been lost, that has been and is still being recovered. The endless possibilities suggested by the form of a ladder offers me an opening, not only into poems, but also inwards – through a process of descent, or katabasis in Greek – to my deepest self and to recover the inspiration that is my source, much like poet, Adrienne Rich, in her poem Diving Into the Wreck,

There is a ladder.

The ladder is always there

hanging innocently.

I go down…

I came to see the damage that was done

And the treasures that prevail.

Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 by Adrienne Rich