What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781854115157)

Shortlisted for the 2011 Wales Book of the Year

Shortlisted for the 2010 TS Eliot Prize

Book of the Year, The Observer

What the Water Gave Me contains fifty-two poems in the voice of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Some of the poems are close interpretations of Kahlo's work, while others are parallels or version homages where Petit draws on her experience as a visual artist to create alternative 'paintings' with words. More than just a verse biography, this collection explores how Kahlo transformed trauma into art after the artist's near-fatal bus accident. Petit, with her vivid style, her feel for nature and her understanding of pain and redemption, fully inhabits Kahlo's world. Each poem is an evocation of "how art works on the pain spectrum", laced with splashes of ferocious colour.