Antidotes to Dissolution

‘Patrick harbours both love and rage in these words but also manifest within is a beautiful hope and reminder of our shared humanity.’ – Martyn Joseph

‘A serious and engaged artist reaching a high point in a long career’ – Lewis Davies

Poems of grief, loss, healing, awe, resilience, hope and transformation.After visiting the Occupied West Bank in 2023, Patrick Jones felt helpless. Useless. A voyeur. Could poetry make a difference? The brave, beautiful, resilient people he met asked him to go back and tell their stories. So, that’s what he did. Antidotes to Dissolution’s opening section offers glimpses of his first-hand experience of the people and the place and documents the genocide in Gaza livestreamed into our homes since October 2023. ‘The Heart is a Security Risk’ is a love letter to Palestine; a small act of resistance, of solidarity with the Palestinian people who have been subjected to so much death, destruction, pain and oppression.

After a very difficult few years of loss, grief, toxic relationships, major surgery and world desolation, every day Patrick is grateful if words arrive and grateful for those who read them. In part two, ‘Hold This Dust’, he addresses our wellbeing and environment, asking how we can live in a world that allows such huge atrocities to happen? And how can we be kind to each other... and to ourselves? Using poetry as a tool for navigating the sometimes crushing world we are living in, Patrick explores sea swimming, breathwork, meditation, yoga, walking and gratitude practices in his own psychological journey through loss and grief to survival/thrival.