I Love My Love

I Love My Love, a ballad by Scottish-born poet Helen Adam, is based on a traditional Celtic interpretation of the Medusa theme. The book features sixteen images by artist Kiki Smith, derived from her own hair.

Helen Adam would have been 100 years old in December 2009. She was a prominent member of the San Francisco literary scene that profoundly altered the course of American poetry in the 1950s and 1960s. Among the avant-garde she was seen as an anomaly, seemingly old-fashioned, but regarded as a direct link to ancient poetic tradition.

In Adam’s unsettling ballad, the bridegroom is first embraced, then ensnared, by his bride’s lavish golden tresses. After he murders her, the hair continues to grow and avenges itself upon the guilty bride-groom, who tried to free himself from the constrictive bonds of love.

The book is bound in concertina format, in an accordion-fold of eighteen panels. Images of the artist’s hair are printed lithographically in three colors, alternately above and below the text, with the hair flowing outward from the left margin of each panel. The result is an artist book that stretches out flat to over twenty feet. It can be displayed on a shelf or table spread out to twelve feet (or less) in the accordion mode. It can also be viewed two pages at a time as in a conventional codex. The artist’s hair has been used to create a graphic parallel to the poetry.

Read more about the book and artist.