stewarding
Sean Roy Parker
stewarding maps the joyful and embodied ways we can resist oppressive structures that control our food, housing, and socialisation. We begin in an abandoned school, previously the union headquarters for a coal board, which became a legal guardianship, now condemned. We witness acts of communing between human inhabitants, composting worms, microbes in fermentation, and learn working class histories along the way. Here, complex networks emerge between agents, and thrive, disrupting the monolithic power of corporate extraction. Sean Roy Parker’s debut collection of poetry is a generous account of hopeful ways to eat and ways to live.
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I live amongst stewards who paint walls lazure
and fix leaks to fend off black fungal bloom.
I live amongst a family of swifts settled in the rafters
who shit on the windowsills and draw lines on dusk skies.
I live amongst vivacious and herbaceous edges,
billowing with edible pioneers and
formerly kempt shrubs that now split bricks with their roots.
I live amongst dutiful pollinators that nest in rotted wood:
Brimstone, Red Admiral, Speckled Blue, Angel Shade, Old Lady
I live amongst rodents who trolley food around the perimeters
who clear up after us in the kitchen at night
who hide from the cat in tall grass.
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‘stewarding is full of sensitive advice and astute observations for scavengers, foragers, worms farmers and citizen scientists; you'll need this when you are knee-deep in last year's dirt and dead flowers.’
– Lars Holdhus, Degrowth For Artists
Published 22 November 2024
Designed by Samantha Whetton
52pp, with b/w photos and plant dye
140mm x 215 mm
ISBN 978-1-7395424-3-6
£15 + p&p