The Garden by Ishion Hutchinson for iOS

Poet Ishion Hutchinson's The Garden weaves through a surreal ink and watercolor environment - forming Rocket Chair Media's first original collaboration. Illustrated, interactive and unlike any paper reading, this app presents an experience filled with meaningful, metaphoric content beyond the page.The Garden is a landscape caught in a phantasmagoria of violence and revolt. The poem gathers force from strange images of flora and fauna - themselves in revolt - juxtaposed next to depiction of urban poverty and modern weapons. The main line of the poem is how it is expanding and contracting along the subtle narrative of a love story not possible in light of such extreme brutality. Even the dead are alive but unable to survive; all life is at threat in this complex, volatile country. There is an insomniac dictator haunted by the tyranny of his power. Nevertheless, the end of the poem suggests, carefully and hesitantly, that hope can emerge out of this bewildering miasma.