Two Found Poems: The Floral Artist & The 'strelitzia Reginae' Poem by Chi

1 - The Floral Artist

‘A stocky figure with elephantine limbs,
(not Picasso’s fleshy paintings)
a head like a large, flat Dutch cheese,

thick lips; a hollow voice;
crooked fingers; a repellent appearance;

yet beneath the surface…

The most celebrated flower painter of his day,
the most popular indeed

in the whole history of botanical art’



2 - 'the Strelitzia Reginae'

‘From a perennial stringy root
shoot forth a considerable number of leaves,

standing upright on long footstalks,
from a sheath of someone of which,
near its base,

springs the flowering stem,
arising somewhat higher than the leaves,
and terminating in an almost horizontal
long-pointed spatha,

containing about six of eight flowers,

which becoming vertical as they spring forth,
from a kind of crest,

which the glowing orange of the Corolla,
and fine azure of the Nectary,
renders truly superb’.