Image by lucapost via Flickr
Six Foot Four – Sunflower
What could be
more
outrageous
than
a six foot four
sunflower?
Native
of the Americas.
Perhaps…
10 tonnes of Ai Weiwei’s
famous porcelain sunflower seeds!
10 tonnes,
a tenth of those
covered
Tate Modern’s
Turbine Hall.
The perfect sunshine
yellow, fiery and proud,
stunning spirals
typically loud,
typically
times thirty-four inside,
fifty-five outside,
spirals.
Helianthus annuus
for birds,
for bread, medicine,
dyes, body paints,
sunflower oil,
livestock feed, latex
–yes, latex–
six foot four!
Polly Stretton © 2015
To cheer up a miserable and overcast February afternoon, a rewrite of my 2012 poem about sunflowers, surely the most cheery of all 🙂
journalread 
05/02/2015 at 15:13
Ah.. sunflowers, the best part of spring! six foot is perfect too 😄
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05/02/2015 at 15:19
Such lovely things 🙂 Make you happy.
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05/02/2015 at 15:22
They do indeed 😄
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05/02/2015 at 15:23
I love the seed pattern.
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05/02/2015 at 15:25
Me too, there are times thirty-four spirals inside, and fifty-five outside – they’re amazing.
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05/02/2015 at 15:24
Thank you Polly! The fields of those glorious beauties will delight us here in the summer. Today it is cold and a bit grey but you have just taken me back to those delicious flowers who follow the sun. 🙂
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05/02/2015 at 15:26
I remember you saying about the fields of sunflowers before, didn’t you post a photo of them? Or maybe I looked it up? They are so gleeful – pure delight – just what I needed today 🙂
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05/02/2015 at 15:28
Yes. It has been some time since I posted them but I do love them. A friend who has visited from California several times prefers the fields of Poppies which are lovely but I am a sucker for the sunflower! 🙂
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05/02/2015 at 15:41
Yes – I believe they have fields of sunflowers there too 🙂
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05/02/2015 at 15:46
There is nothing like driving these small winding roads and coming into a field of either flower at its peak! Divine! 🙂
Thanks for the sunshine! 🙂
Eek! It just started SNOWING!!! 😦
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05/02/2015 at 15:47
heh-heh…make the most of it whilst it’s fresh, for sure as sure, the slush is coming 😀
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05/02/2015 at 15:51
No, it came fast and furious for a few minutes and is barely coming at all now. What did fall is already gone. C’est la vie! 😉
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05/02/2015 at 16:19
As I stare at the pattern of seeds they start to swirl and change. Very nice but I think I’d better stop staring now!
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05/02/2015 at 16:26
They are almost hypnotic, ‘eh John? 🙂 And it’s a Fibonacci sequence doncha know 😉
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05/02/2015 at 20:27
Heard the name – I think there was a R4 programme on him, but I missed it! So of course I just Googled and funnily enough the first equation includes a reference to ‘seed values’, but not sunflower seeds.
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05/02/2015 at 21:29
heh-heh…aren’t search engines great? [rhetorical]!!
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05/02/2015 at 16:56
Just what I needed to brighten my surroundings of snowy white. Thank you!
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05/02/2015 at 17:19
‘Every little helps’ as one of our biggest supermarkets says over here 😉
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05/02/2015 at 17:03
Sometimes I just don’t get art I really don’t.
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05/02/2015 at 17:20
heh-heh…I take it you followed the Tate Gallery link Joe 😉
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05/02/2015 at 18:40
A fabulous piece of sunshine Polly! I had no idea about all those spirals! Nature amazes me all the time as I keep learning more and more, it’s mind boggling! 😊
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05/02/2015 at 18:42
Such a pretty flower – the spirals are fab, aren’t they – here’s another thing I found out, Christine, it’s a Fibonacci sequence 😉
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05/02/2015 at 18:52
Wow! Even more amazing, it makes me shiver and I am definitely humbled.
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05/02/2015 at 18:55
Like you said, they’re amazing 😊
>
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07/02/2015 at 19:35
A funny homage–I would love to see that at the Tate–it reminds me of some old Walter de Maria works at the Dia Foundation–the Earth Room! k.
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07/02/2015 at 19:46
Walter de Maria is new to me, I looked him up and see what you mean—that long term installation, amazing 🙂
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07/02/2015 at 23:05
He also did a great one called The Broken Kilometer. These are all quite old. k.
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08/02/2015 at 03:29
I didn’t see that one. Will look it up. Art may be old yet at the same time timeless — thanks again for the intro 🙂
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18/02/2015 at 22:45
Did you see Weiwei’s sunflower seeds? I wish I had! Great poem, very evocative 🙂
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18/02/2015 at 22:51
Only in photographs, sadly. I wish I’d seen them in ‘real life’ too. Glad you enjoyed the poem 🙂
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18/02/2015 at 22:59
By the time I found out about them they were already a health and safety risk!
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18/02/2015 at 23:00
He’s had some troubles in his home land too…http://aiweiweineversorry.com/
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18/02/2015 at 23:02
Shame – the time they were in the news I was supporting a student at uni in the art department and another student was making hundreds of origami cranes – such patience!
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18/02/2015 at 23:04
Looks an interesting film – thanks for tge link 🙂
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