London Premonition: Photography

Artist Statement

There is nothing more revealing of a city’s voice than its nightscape. London Premonition illuminates a strange pocket south of the Thames in the Borough of Hackney, far from Fleet Street and London’s iconic towers and cathedrals. Because it was mainly a neighborhood for commerce, the streets and buildings seemed abandoned in the evening hours—the voice more ghostly than sentient. If the aim of art is to represent an internal significance rather than outward appearance, perhaps the stones of our own inner cities allow us to build this emotional landscape.

Photography could be seen as an extension of poetry. Cropping, like revision, is a point of departure which could lead anywhere, but ultimately takes us to what the vision or poem wants to be. London Premonition exists in divided worlds—the limned edges of the buildings separating the real from the imagined. Cities have minds—thoughts and secrets and divine mysteries—we can read them if we listen.

Lois P. Jones is host of “Poet’s Café” (KPFK, Los Angeles 90.7 fm), and co-produces poetry readings with Alice Pero. She is the Poetry Editor of Kyoto Journal and a three-time Pushcart nominee. She has poetry published in American Poetry Journal, Qarrtsiluni, Sierra Nevada Review, Askew, Raven Chronicles, Tiferet, as well as Destinations. Several of her photographs have been published in national journals.