The Garden by Ishion Hutchinson

**2015 Finalist for the Digital Book Awards**

"Caribbean author Hutchinson’s epic poem sprawls across a desultory dreamscape filled with unsuspecting power, scope and sweep."
–Kirkus (starred review)

The Garden weaves its words and readers 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.