Would Jove appoint some flower to reign
In matchless beauty on the plain
The Rose (mankind will all agree)
The Rose the queen of flowers should be.
-Sappho, born c. 620 BCE
Poetry & Roses share a special bond; a rose flower may be the most used symbolic reference by poets right from ancient times for describing & expressing a whole range of emotions and objects.
From time immemorial we can find the Rose being celebrated as a symbol for themes like love, life, heart, perfection, romance, secrecy, sacredness, compassion, death etc. Sufi mystics often used the rose flower as a favorite object in symbolically representing the connection between the divine and the seeker.
Even painters, illustrators, architects and other artists used a range of depictions of the rose flower to symbolically represent hidden or visible meanings within their works.
‘Poetry of Roses’ from Carolyn Parker – a photographer and an artist who is associated with fields like floral designs, fashion and gardening – is a celebration of the beauty of the rose flower, while introducing the reader to some of the best rose themed poetry, carefully chosen from a range of locations and time-frames. This fine art book has a selection of over sixty exquisitely captured full-color high quality photographs by Carolyn complimented with fine samplings from masters of poetry.
“O sweet the rose that blossometh on Friendship’s tree!
Selection from the The Rubáiyát and Odes of Hafiz
It fills my heart with joy and ecstasy.
I seek the rose’s company because her scent
Recalls the fragrance sweet of ONE belov’d by me”
You will find a fine selection of poems from such diverse masters like Sappho, Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, Farid ud-Din Attar, Hāfez-e Shīrāzī, Omar Khayyám, Matsuo Bashō, Emily Dickinson, Jorge Luis Borges, John Milton, T.S. Eliot and many others, which rejoice the joy, beauty, color, love and the erotic elements that a rose flower represents. The photographs are taken by Carolyn at her own rose garden – a garden with more than 150 varieties of roses – and they capture the many moods and stages of the flower.
As Carolyn observes in the foreword, Poetry of Roses is indeed a ‘celebration of the poetry of roses’ and is a book that can delight both poetry and art lovers.
Written By : Pramod S Nair
