Camilla Nelson reciting one of her poems at Salon48 Bath
In this spoken‑word performance, Camilla Nelson paints a vivid, fragmented scene of an apple‑picking army moving through a rural landscape. The poem juxtaposes the tactile details of crates, barrows, and falling apples with broader reflections on greed, exploitation, and the transition from a traditional, post‑industrial agrarian life to a post‑human era. Sensory imagery—smell of rotting fruit, the sight of butterflies, the sound of apples thudding—interweaves with symbolic references to cider, wine, sterilisation, and steam, questioning how humanity can act when the natural world is both harvested and abandoned. The piece oscillates between moments of raw, almost celebratory description (“Throw, catch, throw… This is good”) and a critical, contemplative tone that highlights the loss of agency and the unlocking of gates left unattended.
