David Donaldson Common Wealth: A Sequence

This panoramic sequence of poems traces our changing relationship over the ages to Nature, Land and the Garden and embraces contrasting but interrelated levels of domestic, political and spiritual significance. Starting from our ancient understanding of being woven into a World manifestly alive, it goes on to picture our loss of this sense, the rise of our Christian culture out of the ruins of Rome and its decline as our desire and capacity to dominate, control and profit from the natural world steadily increases. The Sequence also looks at paintings and drawings from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to trace the increasing pace of the enclosures of common land with its far-reaching implications for land ownership and economic practice and the challenges this continues to pose for significant numbers today for a decent and affordable place to live. Common Wealth also looks into the heart of how we regard and value the natural world, an issue of increasing urgency with changes in the climate bearing down. In essence, this is a wake-up call fundamentally challenging 'business as usual'!