Blood and Daughters

Imogen Thompson- Vear. First performed as part of ISWAS International Storytelling Festival 2024. Part of Manchester Histories Festival 2024.

Inspired by frequent themes of heritage, seeds and family explored in the It Started With a Seed (IS WAS) International Storytelling Festival, “Blood and Daughters” was written as a last- minute edition to the event.

Performed as a poetry piece, no visuals were used alongside it in an attempt to maintain the focus on the words alone. I memorised my piece to heart and performed it plain and simple in a short narrative about family which however is rarely plain and simple. My poem is a mosaic of previous unfinished works such as the first stanza which was originally a draft meant for a slam poetry piece. Additionally, the third and fourth ones which were taken from an incomplete work from a couple of years ago which had been entirely forgotten about. What I had noticed in these previous works was that either intentionally or unintentionally they were all woven with threads of stories or feelings about my heritage and my family and patchwork style, I sewed together this piece.

Imogen Thompson-Vear standing on a stage reading poetry
Imogen Thompson-Vear reading poetry

As a student intern for the IS WAS festival, I had the privilege of working alongside multiple different (and much more experienced!) artists who each in their own way explored the key themes of heritage and seeds prevalent in the festival. I had never expected to have the opportunity to perform my own work here as an intern but it was made possible by the supportive and encouraging staff and artists, and I am forever grateful to have been pushed into finally finishing a piece and performing it exactly as I had envisioned it, just me and my words and the audience.

“I can collect enough apple pips
To make cyanide.
Crushed in my fist
Drips
Poison, power, pips,
Tree seeds receding
By a muscle memory.
I am the poison
And I
Am the antidote.
I am the show of seeds,
The following of thieves,
An accessory of
A tree
Like one of its leaves.
A fortune cookie
Speaking in cheap proverbs
Tells me to go
With my gut feeling.
But I come
From Scottish clans
and Norman Lords,
Lines of men with
Bloody wars and swords.
I come from people with working class freedoms,
And grandmas who fussed and shoved,
Going to church to receive gods love,
You say that
Blood and daughters are thicker than water,
But we are the anchor
Of this ship.
You say Bricks and mortar
Are thicker than water,
But we are the salt of our earth.
Riding bikes in grandads garden,
We race, we fly, we fall,
We stand back up
And you are tall where I am small.
Our clan a tile on the kitchen wall.
A cat perched primal over the baby,
Us laughing, a recreation of Aesops fable.
The other grandad we last saw in a coffin.
A pale imitation.
Because of him,
Our people are opera singers in the summer,
Comedians in Friday nights clubs.
Norman Lords
Building the northern forts,
Bricks and Mortar,
Blood and daughters.”