Poetry SchoolHave you ever been a resident poet? Did your local stately home / barbershop / ironmongers invite you to soak up their atmosphere, talk to their customers and create new poems from the experience? We’d like to hear from you if so …
The Poetry School is working on an exciting new project which will offer up to 16 poets the opportunity to try out a poetry residency. Details will be announced in our forthcoming Summer Term brochure, but meanwhile we are gathering details of the different sorts of residencies our students, tutors and followers have been involved in previously. There is such a range of activity involved in a residency, from simple ‘time to write’ arrangements to more complex community engagements. In the introductory session that will kick off our Summer project, we want to be able to give participants lots of case studies of successful residencies to inspire their ideas, so we’re looking for reports of actual activities which have taken place within this range.
If you could spare a couple of minutes to tell us about any experience you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. We’re interested in any reflections you have about the type of residency you had, what you might have written, what other ways you interacted with an organisation / location / community, what went well, what you’d do differently again – any bits of wisdom you’d like to pass on would be most gratefully received. If you’ve got photos and links you’d like to share with project participants, please send them along.
You can either reply in CAMPUS or email Julia Bird (Head of Programmes at the Poetry School) on [email protected] with anything you’d like to share.
Never done this but very interested in becoming one of the 16. Look forward to your update
I’ve been a poet in residence a few time but jotting it down here in a comment box feels very me, me, me, so I’ll pop it in an email instead.
Thanks both – and Sarah, ta for your email!
In 1997/8 when I was a lecturer in further education, working on access courses and teaching creative writing, I approached the human resources manager with the idea that part of my job might be poet-in-residence for the college. The idea was that I would run workshops for staff and students, write some poems and encourage the community in by putting on poetry events, such as readers’ afternoons etc, Amazingly, she agreed and my contract was amended accordingly, specifying these things. I post this as encouragement to those poets who are working in institutions who might look favourably on such tweaking of contracts. That residency did wonders for my confidence and profile.