I’ve written poems.
I often do this but I don’t often share them. There is an element of poetry that takes me back to English Lit. class, reading Shakespeare’s sonnets and thinking ‘what a whiney wanker’ whilst my teacher pontificated about the beauty of his linguistic techniques. But then
Ana da Silva came into my life, and Kathy Acker, and Karen Finley, and Kathleen Hannah, and Travis Alabanza, closely followed by Michelle Tea, and Joelle Taylor, and I started to think maybe poems are alright.

Similarly, when I first spoke with Daisy about their personal cultural context, they expressed to me that growing up in an environment saturated by punk culture opened a door to making art, and existing in the “art world”, that otherwise felt like it was squirreled away up an ivory tower.

As well as sharing similar personal inspiration and cultural context - we have visited similar psychological and emotional spaces, Daisy and I, over the past couple of years at least it seems, both through specific circumstance and sociological environment.
“I think we’re in sync” they say to me on the phone as we discuss I’ll be your mother. “We’ve synced up!” I joke in reply. --- Though I have been thinking about moments like this pretty deeply for a while now; tacit psychological connections, psychic communities, the fundamentally collaborative nature of all things including, survival, anger, grief, joy, fun, creative expression, motherhood.

With the above in mind, here are some personal creative responses, from my gut, to written prompts in Daisy’s paintings, in this show, that we have together settled on title-ing I’ll be your mother and I’ll be mine, too

Don’t Leave Me
I’ve not left you
I’m not going to leave

Let me hold you and rock you and stay while you breathe

I’ll be your mother
And I’ll be mine, too

She’s here with us isn’t she, you and me,
me and you?

She’s not left you and she’s not going to leave. She’ll live on inside me, I’ll pull her to me

I’ll morph and contort and I’ll use her shampoo, I’m here,
It’s ok,
She’s not left you

Don’t worry darling,
I’m not going to leave

I’ll be your mother
You’ll I’ll be mine, too

We’ll figure this out,
You and me
Me and You

Motherhood especially, though it often has a particularly binary and gendered definition, feels like an inherently collaborative act.

All around me/us people I/we love are becoming mothers, losing mothers, gaining mothers, mothering each other and being mothered. Sister-mothers, mother-friends, brother-mothers, other-mothers, lover-mothers. It doesn’t always look like what you think it should, but it’s there.

Mother
verb
1. bring up (a child) with care and affection.

Mothering
verb
To care for or protect like a mother.

I’ll Be Your Mother
noun
1. A caregiver in a non-traditional context
who fulfills needs that a mother may
otherwise more classically satisfy.

intent
2. Show up, unconditionally, listen, hear,
care for in response and protect with
affection.

Two Mums
Sit
side by side,

Take the kids -
For an hour, The day, The weekend,
On a trip, For Christmas

They don’t know Each other
Really
But still, they

Drive to the supermarket,
With a List:

*Apple Juice *Skittles *Haribo (The tangy ones) *Watermelon *Clementines *Milk *Bananas *Split *Share *Bread *French stick *Baguette *Hold *Play *Flower *Eggs *Raise *Tea *Sugar *Love *Coffee *Catch *Sunny D *Peanuts (Salted) *Tomato Soup

- 20x Marlborough Gold
(Yes the duty free carton has finally run out, no I
won’t smoke them in front of the kids)

- That French wine we had in Paris
Vin la Villageoise (Get 2 if they’re still on offer)

Slip Fight Dance Cry *Loo roll Snack
And sing along
To Missy Elliot
On the radio