A creative collaboration between photography and poetry. Project contained 12 poems by 12 contributing female poets, exploring the theme: the male muse/female creator, the role of sexuality and desire and the body in creativity, alongside 12 artistic nude images of selected male poets, photographed by 12 UK female photographers. I was very lucky to be apart of this project.

I was contacted by the wonderful creator of this project Vik Bennett of Wild Women Press. The idea was to create a beautiful fine art calendar,to raise funds and awareness for diabetes research to find a cure for type one diabetes. A cause very close to Vik, as her son was diagnosed with type one diabetes at the age of 2 years

My beautiful poem by Penelope Shuttle

Love, The Blackmailer

Who has the mad yell of a ring-tone,

the daft look of a work of art

no one’s noticed for years ?

Love the Blackmailer, of course,

who compares me to a summer’s day,

or calls me, for the first time, Mummy.

If I had a thousand hearts

to give him, it wouldn’t be enough.

And kisses! A million won’t suffice.

All Love’s demands are final

All Love’s threats are carried out,

Love the Blackmailer with his ledger of secrets,

his I know where you live…

What he knows will wreck a career

or a marriage, start a war.

What Love knows

can only be kept secret

by giving him the shirt off your back,

the keys to your kingdom.

And what’s Love going to give you, then?

What’s he got up his sleeve for you this tear-bright day?