“Melmillo” by Dorothy Lathrop

In the previous entry Jacqui detailed her experience at the Walter de la Mare conference in Cambridge this past month. Although years have passed since her doctoral dissertation, Reid-Walsh’s current research on eighteen-century turn-up books aligned with her graduate work on de la Mare. By way of arguing that the theme of transformation found in his poems are compatible with the process of critical making, Reid-Walsh proposed to the audience at the conference the construction of a hypothetical turn-up book inspired by de la Mare’s work.

I was struck by the novelty of this idea. As a pedagogical tool, critical making is an incredibly immersive, creative and reflective process. With this in mind I familiarized myself with de la Mare’s poetry and decided to try and create my own turn-up book inspired by the poem “Melmillo”.

Process:
-The process began by reading the poem a few times and thinking about how I wanted to go about starting the turn-up book.
-I took a few minutes to think about how the different lines in the poem could be best incorporated in each flap and how I wanted to convey the transformation of the narrative in the poem.

Turn-up draft, sketching the concept

-It was surprising to me that as I thought about how to draw the elder wood/elder tree (line 2) mentioned in the poem, that I began to think more critically about the meaning of it in relation to the nymph-like nature of Melmillo.

Turn-up, first flap open

The mock-up draft:
-Used a blank turn-up book of my own making and began to sketch out my plan for the narrative. The turn-up books are easy to make. Take a rectangular piece of paper, in my case I used the standard 8.5 by 11 letter size. I folded the top and bottom to meet at the center and sketch three lines with pencil where I would cut the flaps.
-The concept was a simple one. Each flap would have an elder tree except the last one in which Melmillo reveals herself as a the “elder mother” of Celtic mythology.
-The idea was for the birds was (thirty-three in total at the beginning of the poem) to be part of the tree itself (leaves) and progressively leave the tree naked in the process of transforming into Melmillo. This made sense to me as the poem speaks of Melmillo’s breast being where the birds went to rest: “All the birds were flown to rest /In the hollow of her breast;” (lines 17-18)

Turn-up book, all flaps open

Admittedly, because of my artistic limitations I was not able to do as much with it with as my imagination would’ve liked. However, the process of making this object was the catalyst to other avenues of research. I recalled Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Elder-Tree Mother” as well as other folklore about dancing goddesses and tree spirits. Throughout my sketching, my curiosity grew and I began to research the symbolism of the elder wood and found affirming information regarding the Celtic, Germanic, and Judeo-Christian connections.

My research is in its beginning stages at the moment but already I have found some interesting sources on Celtic mythology and the Elder Mother. Most of the more Elder-mother/elder-tree specific sources were found in other academic blogs on mythology, however, some recently been published books (Ayn Cates Sullivan’s Legends of the Grail: Stories of Celtic Goddesses and The Book of Celtic Myths) were also of use while looking for information on myths about goddesses.

While looking for the root of the Elder tree’s folklore, the common assumption is that it arises from the plant’s extensive medicinal properties. Part of the mythology attached to it stems from it being thought to have the ability to protect from harm. It was believed that the Elder Mother or ‘Hylde Moer’ (Danish) was living inside of the tree as its spirit. This pairs well with de la Mare’s own interpretation of her in his poem “Melmillo” as well as Hans Christian Andersen’s take on the Elder mother. The transformation that Melmillo has undergone in the beginning lines of the poem is reflective of the process of transformation that is part of critical making. I’d be interesting in doing this exercise with other poems by de la Mare. The prevalent themes of transformation and movement in his children’s literature are suitable for an interactive interpretation of his poems.

Mac Vermuelen and myself deep in conversation about de la Mare

Two weeks ago, I presented and animated a session at a conference devoted to reading Walter de la Mare, a British poet, short story writer, novelist and essayist. Although he wrote for adults and children, it is his children’s poetry that has long fascinated me. Indeed, I did my dissertation on his poetry writing during my daughter’s naptime. As I introduced my talk I observed that since she is now married and living in Nashville, the thesis was written a while ago!

When the organizers of the conference had first contacted me, I was thrilled and felt privileged to have the opportunity to revisit de la Mare’s work with my present-day interests in mind. As I immersed myself in his poetry over the summer, I sensed how his brilliant poems of transformation invite a connection with my passion for turn-up books! I submitted a proposal and it was accepted.

The conference was held in the English Department at Cambridge University and in the evening a performance of folk and opera music set to de la Mare’s poems was held at the beautiful Newnham College.  In keeping with the multimodal nature of his work, my talk was called “Widdershins: Transformations and multimodality in Walter de la Mare’s children’s poetry—an imagined metamorphic turn-up book project.” My hinge idea was linking de la Mare’s use of the transformation scene in pantomimes in order to explain how his child figures in his poetry temporarily enter another world to a type of turn-up book derived from the transformation scene — the harlequinade.  I took with me a PowerPoint based on several published harlequinades in special collections, a number of facsimiles based on one homemade religious turn-up book that Penn State owns, and some folded blank paper. My aim was to provoke thinking about how to make a turn-up that could demonstrate materially shifts in perception that the child figures and by extension readers experience when engaging with these poems.

Taken by Anne Welsh, University of London; de la Mare poem about the pantomime, illustration by Harold Jones

It was a busy half hour. I shared the images, my thoughts and handed out folded paper sheets and several poems we could possibly engage with –poems where children, girls and boys, through dance and twirling encounter a mysterious other or double. Although there was not enough time to make a book, in our brainstorming session people suggested different types of theatrical metamorphic movable books such as those with volvelles or complex turn-ups that might also work. After the session ended in addition to all keeping the facsimiles, some people took the folded paper away to work with their families at home.

Taken by Anne Welsh, University of London Harlequinade images courtesy of Penn State Special Collections

The experience of attending the conference, listening to brilliant and sometimes famous scholars was inspiring. More importantly since it was a small conference we all attended all the events together and the presence of the publisher grandson Giles de la Mare added a vital intertwined personal and research dimension. I am reading a book by one of the presenters about the sound of poetry and in correspondence with some other delegates. I look forward to continuing to work on bringing my two scholarly passions together.