Patterns presents Amy Lowell’s much anthologized poem Patterns in a live, theatrical performance surrounded by a soundscape created from a reading of the poem by Diana McIntosh and various Victorian sounds such as a ticking, chiming clock, spinning wheel, birdsong and a stream. Lowell (1874-1925), a descendant of a distinguished New England family, professed no great love for the “new woman,” but in this poem the suffocating patterns of conventional femininity are symbolized by the stiff brocaded dress the speaker longs to throw aside. Patterns was commissioned by and for Diana McIntosh (whose voice is heard in the tape part) and premiered at a Groundswell concert of the same name in Winnipeg.