The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
That's In a Station of the Metro by American poet Ezra Pound, and over the next two weeks, the Memory & Desire blog will be exploring what various perfumers might come up with using the poem as “a possible starting point for a fantasy blend in which the cost of materials and production is unimportant and the only limitation is imagination”.
Things kick off today with perfumer Mandy Aftel; she'll be followed by Lisa Fong, Yosh Han, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Rachel Jones, Vero Kern, Christophe Laudamiel, Anya McCoy, Ineke Ruhland, Ayala Sender, Michael Storer, Andy Tauer, Roxana Villa and Liz Zorn. At the end, there will be a drawing, and the winner will receive a collection of perfume samples including four created especially for the project.
You can find the introductory article here.
Note: image of Ezra Pound via wikimedia.
3 Comments
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Thank you for posting this, Robin! We now have FIVE custom fragrances based on the poem! The project gets more exciting every time I check my inbox!
There's a poem by John Donne about perfume, 'Elegy number 4: The Perfume' which describes being betrayed by his perfume when trying to visit his lover illicitly. Nice knowing the divine Dr. Donne was a perfumisto in his time!
Ah, will have to go look for that! Quite sure I have not cracked open my John Donne anthology since college, sad to say…