Poke.Salad
Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana
relief print

American Pokeweed goes by many names, including poke, poke sallet, pokeberry, dragonberries, scoke, crowberry, inkberry, pigeonberry weed, and American nightshade (though poke is not a member of the nightshade/Solanaceae family). It’s also referred to as polk – supporters of James Polk wore sprigs of this plant in their lapels during his 1845 presidential campaign. Any of these common names would be inspiration enough for the design of a relief print, but, really, why resist the connection to Tony Joe White’s late 60s hit song, Polk Salad Annie?!

White wrote Polk Salad Annie in 1968 and released the recording in 1969; Elvis Presley added it to his live shows in 1970.
“Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods and the fields
Looks somethin’ like a turnip green
Everybody calls it polk salad . . .
Used to know a girl that lived down there
And she′d go out in the evenings and pick her a mess of it
Carry it home and cook it for supper
′Cause that’s about all they had to eat
They did alright. . . “

All parts of Pokeweed are toxic, so Annie surely must have boiled only young leaves in several changes of water to avoid being poisoned. According to the chorus granny met a very different fate.

Give it a listen:
https://youtu.be/IBfMLmNjFn4?feature=shared

#printmaking #reliefprint #linocut #poisonplants #botanical #pokeweed #polksaladannie #tonyjoewhite #aspotentasacharm