#laboni islam

[mysunfreckle]

The Thing About Austen podcast just had poet Laboni Islam as a guest, because she wrote a series of poems about Jane Austen's muslin shawl, while in residency at the Jane Austen's House museum:

The poems are all about placing the shawl in its context, both as a favourite garment of Austen's and as a piece of art created by Bengali spinners and weavers. Laboni Islam did tons of research to get all the details right and it's really beautiful. You can read and listen to them on the Jane Austen's House website.

The strongest parts of the poems don't work well taken out of their stanzas, but "history has a high thread count" is going to haunt me for a while.

[emdroid]

WEAVING RESEARCH INTO POETRY:

Poet Laboni Islam embarked on her Reimagine Residency last summer, visiting the Herbarium at Kew Gardens to learn about the history of Dhaka cotton, visiting Jane Austen's House to examine Jane Austen's hand-embroidered muslin shawl, and Zooming with the Bengal Muslin project to learn about Dhaka muslin. The result is a wonderful series of poems that trace a single possible history of the muslin shawl, from Bangladesh to Chawton.