“Drinking Daisies”

Kate Falvey created “Drinking Daisies” from the Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper (1653). Please click here to read.

About the poem and the process of composing it, Kate Falvey writes:

Culling from Culpeper (I had to say this!) was like entering an ancient hothouse or a wildly overgrown enchanted garden. I’d browsed through his famous herbal before, but never before steeped myself (sorry) in his language of remedies and restoratives. My method was simple: don’t use any words not in the text itself, including the title. Keep phrases when possible but break up sentences into single words when transitions are needed. Try to work chronologically but backtrack when needed to fill in those pesky transitional words. I had a good time losing myself and finding my own way within the world of Culpeper’s words.

Also by Kate Falvey at Heron Tree: “The Three Visionary Girls” and “Dorothy Almost Imagined.”