Miss Montgomery's Final Bequest - Christmas decorations

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

39832

Title

Miss Montgomery's Final Bequest - Christmas decorations

Description

The following writing was inspired by wintry objects in the Museum of Childhood collections. The writers are part of 26, a group of writers with a love of words, who have invented a form of writing, called a sestude, consisting of 62 words.

'Miss Montgomery's Final Bequest'

'Not a monumental doll's house,
Electricity and 1d to view
The poker,
The piano,
The ham.

But a tree's dark branches
Dripping icicles,
Spirals of lead
Glimmering silver
As she takes one final turn.

A faded Southern belle
In pink and green
She surveys her last Christmas.

Above her the car collector's gift unfolds
Concertina style
A stream of tissue paper tongues.'

By Mary Paulson-Ellis

Image: Christmas decorations 1950s - 1970s

Date

1950

Type

Paper

Location

Museum of Childhood

26 Children's Winters is a project that has challenged writers to respond creatively and emotionally to objects housed in the collection of the Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh. The writers were selected from 26 and they were allocated different groups of objects that related to childhood experience during the winter time, in the past and in the present. The written responses were in the form of a sestude - 62 words exactly, 26 in reflection. Those sestudes are presented here alongside the Museum objects.

Exhibitions with this item

Other views of this item

Related images