I started Door-to-Door Poetry in 2015 in Newcastle upon Tyne. From 2019 to 2020, I secured Arts Council funding to take the concept to 12 places across England. In this time, I spoke to hundreds of people and wrote a total of 64 poems.

If this is the first time you’ve ever heard about this, I imagine you’ve probably got some questions. But I’m going to conveniently skirt around those for now, because I want to focus the subject of this blog post on the technical side of the process; on the way going door-to-door has affected my writing and the lessons it has taught me about making meaningful poetry.

Because there is an attitude, seldom uttered but ever-present, that writing poetry for other people is cheap- that it is more noble and righteous to only ever write poetry for yourself. Like many of us, I have been guilty of viewing commissions as the work that ‘needs’ to happen, so as to allow me the time and space to make my ‘real’ poetry at a later date.

But I have learned through being a Door-to-Door Poet that there are many benefits to embracing the process of writing for others, ones that go much further and deeper than the scope of this one project. I want to argue here that, through meeting strangers and writing for them, there are a lot of useful skills we can develop and a lot of valuable insights we can make, experiences which broaden our perspective and help us to become more fully-rounded writers.

The first and most obvious benefit of writing poems for other people is that you learn a lot. When you start knocking on strangers’ doors and asking what’s important to them, you very quickly become acquainted with the magnitude of your own ignorance. On my first few outings as a Door-to-Door Poet, I met a surfing enthusiast, a highly unconventional doctor, a bonsai tree expert and a judo champion. Whether it was a discipline, a skill, an emotion, or a life experience, everyone I spoke to had their own specialist subject. It was usually something I knew very little about.

I came to appreciate that this was a very spontaneous way of forcing myself to be more curious. One of the most rewarding examples of this was meeting a man called Sami in the west end of Newcastle. He asked for a poem about Islam. Not knowing very much about the subject, I decided to visit a mosque for the first time in my life. I had a fascinating conversation with the local Imam there, who spoke about the relationship between poetry and the Quran. I came to really enjoy the little rabbit holes this project could lead me down. It was a reminder that everything, if we view it properly, is an opportunity to learn and to grow.

But before we can really learn anything, we need to know where to find it. And the second insight I gained from writing for lots of other people is that it makes you a better listener. Assembling poems on my own, my default setting up till this point had often been to try to persuade the reader, to cajole them into seeing the world through my eyes.As the Door-to-Door Poetry project took shape, it became clear that this wasn’t about persuading anyone, or trying to demonstrate how clever I was. It was about listening and holding the space until I found an earnest moment of connection.

It’s amazing where this can take you. One woman in Bensham, near Gateshead, originally told me she had ‘nothing interesting to talk about’. She went on to detail the story of how she single-handedly rescued her entire family from a housefire, carrying both of her children, one on each shoulder, before running back in to drag her unconscious husband from the flames. Later, in Moss Side – Manchester, a man who asked to be referred to as The Specialist started off by talking about the architecture of council estates. He ended up comparing me to an 18^th century time traveller and asking for a poem about that. None of these conversations would have happened if I had entered the process with any objective. Whether we are writing for ourself or for others, we can always benefit from taking the time to listen more closely.

The third, and perhaps the most memorable, lesson I have gained from Door-to-Door Poetry is that every poem is a collaboration. As time went on, I came to see that the conversations I was having, and the resulting poems that came out of them, existed as part of a partnership. On the most basic level, these poems could not have been written without both me and the person on the doorstep. In every encounter, we were working together, brainstorming and sketching out ideas in a short but meaningful relationship.

But the more I experimented with this way of thinking, the more I came to see that this isn’t just about Door-to-Door Poetry. The fact of the matter is, whether we choose to accept it or not, every poem is a collaboration: Between your current self and your past self. Between you and the subject you are observing. Later, between you and an editor, or a proofreader, or a reader. At any given stage, if we look close enough, we can see that what we are making cannot happen without some degree of interdependence.

This might seem like a simple idea, but embracing it can have a profound effect on your approach. The spotlight is shifted from the ego. Writing is no longer about ‘my thoughts, my idea, my poem’. It is about us. Our shared experience. Our feelings. Our lives. It is, I believe, an example of what the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh called the state of ‘interbeing’- the idea that none of us exist in isolation, that we are always in a relationship with everything around us. 

Writing for other people doesn’t have to happen on a doorstep. It can take place on a bus, in a café, in the workplace or at home. Wherever it is happening, it can pass on very valuable skills for us as writers. As we begin to listen more closely and to put the idea of collaboration into practice, we can move away from lecturing, or excessive erudition. We can move instead towards a desire to make a genuine connection in our work, to express ourselves in a way which is inclusive and engaging. The resulting poetry is, in my experience at least, all the better for it.

About Rowan McCabe

Rowan McCabe is a poet and performer who has written for Channel 4, BBC Radio 3’s ‘The Verb’ and the National Trust. His work has been featured in the Guardian and on BBC Breakfast. He has toured across the UK and has appeared at Glastonbury Festival and the Royal Albert Hall. Rowan’s first full-length book, The Door-to-Door Poet, was published by Eye Books in September 2025.

www.rowanthepoet.co.uk 

buy the book

I was looking forward to working with The Onoma Circle, a collective of poets and artists I’d set up during my first residency. I was looking forward to meeting Phil, a skilled bronze caster, whose family had served the kings of Benin for over 6 generations. I was looking forward to hosting two events I curate: Redacted (a black-out poetry event) and The R.A.P Party (a poetry and music event). I was looking forward to eating my weight in Nigerian food, and soaking my skin in Vitamin D. I was looking forward to to an extremely busy week discussing literary and visual arts, and above all, so seeing ‘Nigeria Imaginary: Homecoming’ – the Museum’s first exhibition.

In 1897, Britain invaded, destroyed most of Benin City and looted most of its stores and altars. Outside Nigeria, the city is synonymous with this tale of plunder and colonial violence. But for me, it city holds a simple filial softness. It is where my father grew up, where my people are from, one of few corners of the world I can partially call home. I was looking forward to playing in my father’s city, on my motherland.

From the tiny airport in Benin, I was planning to go directly to the Museum Of West African Art (MOWAA) when I received a text. From a friend at the museum, the text simply told me not to come. That it wasn’t safe. Roughly 40 protesters had stormed the museum chanting their allegiance to the traditional ruler of Edo State, the Oba of Benin. The protesters had robbed and beaten up merchandise sellers, thrown tables and chairs across the premises, insulted guests, donors, artists and ambassadors who had flown in from across the world. Standing at the airport, I felt a number of things: shock, surprise, horror and deep embarrassment. But in the weeks after, as the dust settled, I learnt that all this had been a long time coming. 

The tens of thousands of items looted from Benin in 1897 were scattered across numerous museums and private collections in Europe and the Americas. Some stayed stationary, behind closed doors, encased in glass. Some were installed proudly outside buildings as if talismans of British conquests. Some were shipped from exhibition to exhibition as colonial-era curiosities. Some were even shown in museums on African soil, but never in Nigeria, and never in Benin. Some exchanged hands for hefty sums at auctions, and all the while, the Oba and the people of Benin watched, insulted, as their cries for justice and restitution were ignored, and their treasures toured the world.

Eventually, the Republic of Nigeria threw its weight behind the Oba, and united, began calling for all that was stolen to be returned. As their voices grew louder and began to gain traction outside of the country, within the country, there were disputes over whom they should be returned to. The Nigerian government argued the items belonged to the republic, to the people of Nigeria as whole. But the Oba believed they belonged to his kingdom, his family, to him personally, and wanted the treasures placed within his palace grounds. This clash between modernity and tradition, between the republic and the kingdom, halted attempts at restitution, a stalemate that meant western institutions could keep the loot for longer. The dispute brewed and boiled for so long, that even after the Nigerian Government stepped back and announced the Oba as the true custodian of all that was stolen in 1897, the atmosphere remained charged, as if a storm cloud, dark and ever ready to burst.

And this is what I waded into, pen in hand, foot in mouth, asking questions that poked at the clouds, searching for answers to spark poetry as the protesters attacked and shut down the exhibition.

John Keats once descried poets as the ‘midwives of reality’, the suggesting being that we pull ideas from what MIGHT BE into what IS. So, perhaps on some subconscious clairvoyant level, I tapped into what would unfold weeks later, because during my first residency, I didn’t ask the poetry collective to write about MOWAA. Instead I asked them to write, imagining their OWN museums.. 

But what is a poem if not a glass case? Isn’t a collection a small museum? What is a memory if not a looted item? Aren’t many books in scattered collections? Many stationary, behind closed doors? Or showcased proudly, as if talismans of conquests? Aren’t rare editions exchanged for hefty sums at auctions? I asked the collective what they would preserve in their museum, who they would invite to their opening, to imagine a visitor and to ask them questions. Below are some lines taking from their poems:

Elvis Ehimen Izamase:
In this museum’s heart, do you find the key
To understanding the essence of a legacy?

Eghonghon Grace Imuetinyan:
Don’t you think stories
Are gateways to histories?

Tracy Ohovwore:
Aren’t you a pawn of the white man? 
Didn’t you trade the comfort of your tradition?

Benita Oseremi Obajuobalo:
Did you feel how culture sits on the tongue—
heavy, sweet, untranslatable?

Efetobore Michelle:
Did it sound melodious, or was it discordant?
Did it expose the conflict in my identity?

Joseph Omoh Ndukwu:
Do you then ask why I have built you this place
On the edge of a city that fell to foreign powers? 

As I write this, MOWAA is closed, and will remain so for an indefinite period. Despite all that happened, my relationship with The Onoma Circle is blossoming. I secured a huge commission for them from the Ethnographic Museum of Zurich, Switzerland. They have items from Benin they will repatriate this year. And my collective are  currently writing poems for each one. 

My next collection, titled ‘Of All The Boys’ will feature many poems about my trip to Benin, and many of them try to encase what haunts me still: the stuff of storm clouds – a shifting mist of questions.

Inua Ellams
FRSL, FRSA.

About Inua Ellams

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of: The Midnight Run (an arts-filled, night-time, urban walking experience.), The Rhythm and Poetry Party (The R.A.P Party) which celebrates live literature and music, and Poetry + Film / Hack (P+F/H) which celebrates poetry and film. Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in his work, where he tries to mix the old with the new: traditional African oral storytelling with contemporary poetics, paint with pixel, texture with vector. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches, Penned In The Margins & Bloomsbury.

The LeftLion Literature Editor at the time, James Walker, handed me a commission to review a show by a spoken word collective called Mouthy Poets. I’d never heard of them, but I was hungry for anything and everything. Secretly, I’d already been scribbling away for years – poems on receipt paper during bar shifts, scraps of verse in staff rooms, email rap battles with telesales colleagues. I’d even dragged a mate to an open mic at Hotel Deux and nervously read out some lines of my own. So when this gig came up, I was intrigued.

That night, twenty-odd poets took turns stepping up to the mic, weaving in and out of each other’s work. Hip-hop beats stitched the evening together, with a flow of poetry that was equal parts raw, playful, and polished. The space buzzed. The words felt alive. At the end, a curly-haired woman in baggy jeans and trainers bounded onto the stage with a clipboard, inviting people to get involved with the collective. Her name was Debris Stevenson, the founder of Mouthy Poets and, though I didn’t know it yet, the person who would help to shape the next decade of my career.

Discovering the Collective

Friday evenings soon became sacred. I joined the collective, notebook in hand, free-writing in circles of poets who encouraged risk-taking and imperfection. We stood up, tried new voices, shared freshly written work on the spot. We mapped out showcases on giant sheets of paper, scrawling with Sharpies, testing out collaborations, making mistakes, laughing, and, without realising it, building friendships.

Mouthy didn’t just teach us to write; it taught us how to craft. We workshopped rigorously, giving and receiving feedback. We experimented with form and performance, exploring how movement, props, sound, and lighting could elevate a poem. We learned to think not only as writers, but as producers and educators.

And then came the visitors. Giants of the poetry world, Roger Robinson, Malika Booker, Hannah Silva, Dean Atta, Patricia Smith, Caroline Bird, who ran masterclasses, retreats, and workshops. We shared stages with them, exchanged ideas, and felt the impossible become possible.

One year, through a cultural exchange programme, we travelled to Karlsruhe, Germany, to collaborate with our sister collective, Löwenmaul (Lion Mouth). We wrote poems, took contemporary dance workshops, and swapped stories late into the night. Later, they came to Nottingham. It felt like poetry could take you anywhere.

From Mouthy to GOBS

As Mouthy alumni, many of us carried the torch. Some launched performance nights, others became Young Poet Laureates, festival organisers, or workshop leaders. I myself started being invited to perform and facilitate. For the first time, poetry wasn’t just a hobby, it was a vocation.

But collectives, like people, have lifespans. After a few luminous years, Mouthy disbanded. The scene, once electric, simmered down. By then I was Editor at LeftLion, my energy poured into producing a monthly magazine. Still, the seed had been planted. During an interview for a Writer-in-Residence role at Nottingham Trent University, I mentioned my dream of starting a new collective. Sandeep Mahal, then Director of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, lit up at the idea. To my amazement, I got the role. When the residency was over, NTU provided start-up funding for the beginnings of GOBS Collective.

Side-by-side with the brilliant Ioney Smallhorne, supported and mentored by John Berkavitch, I launched a five-week education programme: recruiting new members, learning together about poetry, creating an anthology, and building towards a performance showcase. We managed two in-person sessions before the world shifted into lockdown. Suddenly, we were running everything online: writing workshops, rehearsals, feedback sessions. Later, we ran a second online cohort and eventually produced our first live showcases: Full Moon and Earth.

We’ve been lucky to have regular support from Apples and Snakes, who haven’t only provided funding but also advice, encouragement, and moral support. Their belief in us has helped GOBS grow into a sustainable, long-term presence in the city’s cultural landscape.

Finding Sustainability

Over time, we learned the importance of building a ‘spine’ of activity: the minimum heartbeat of the collective that could continue even without funding. That spine became four seasonal events, ranging from cosy winter pub socials to outdoor summer workshops, anchoring us through the year and celebrating the cyclical changes in nature. Around them, we could build more ambitious projects if energy and funding allowed.

In creating sustainability, I’ve discovered the importance of considering how a collective can feed into individual creative practice. Ioney and I launched GOBS Poetry Book Club. It started as a way to finally tackle the unread stacks of poetry collections on our shelves, but quickly became a communal ritual. We met in venues like Mimm Studios, Broadway Cinema, and eventually found a home in Nottingham Central Library. We read aloud, discuss, debate, and write new work inspired by the month’s book.

Then grew another experiment: GOBS Sunrise Sessions. I’d always dreamed of being an early riser, catching the quiet magic of dawn, but never managed it alone. So I set up a regular Zoom space: I had to open the room, so I had to get up. Together, we breathe, stretch, free-write, and set intentions in rhythm with the moon cycle. It’s become not just a practice for me, but a shared ritual supported by GOBS member Sarah Wheatley, and an accountability anchor that links personal growth to communal creativity.

The rhythm of community

Running GOBS has taught me as much about sustainability as it has about poetry. Collectives thrive on energy, but energy alone isn’t enough, they need rhythm. A balance of push and pause. A structure that can withstand burnout and shifting circumstances.

For me, the rhythm of GOBS now echoes the rhythms of life and nature: seasonal events, lunar cycles, the daily rising of the sun. These rhythms don’t just sustain the collective; they sustain me. They remind me that poetry isn’t only about performance or output; it’s about presence, breath, and connection.

Because ultimately, GOBS isn’t just about poetry. It’s about creating a sustainable space where voices can emerge, collide, and resonate. A space that gives what Mouthy Poets once gave me: not just words, but the courage to use them.

Moving forwards after an incredible 2025

​​This past year – our fifth year – has felt like a gentle widening of the circle. We’ve taken GOBS into new spaces, running workshops with a youth centre, a school, and a local charity supporting people with brain injuries. We’ve worked closely with Shadow Poets in this, creating space for others to learn how to deliver work, to hold space, and to build confidence doing so. We’ve also spent time sharing skills within the collective, running masterclasses in workshop facilitation and event hosting, so that the skills, energy and responsibility don’t sit with one person alone.

One of the real highlights was spending time together at Arvon: sixteen of us eating, walking, writing, dancing, and learning in the countryside alongside Anthony Anaxagorou and Vanessa Kisuule. Following that, publishing masterclasses with Bad Betty Press. All of which fed directly into Constellation, a performance showcase where sixteen individual poetry pamphlets were launched at Waterstones Nottingham. None of this would have happened without the care and encouragement of Apples and Snakes.

As we look ahead, we’re trying to loosen our grip a little by reshuffling our organisational structure. We want to let the Collective lead itself more fully, to share power, trust the group, and allow things to grow in unexpected directions. We want to tend to the partnerships we already have, and slowly reach outwards too, perhaps towards other collectives across the UK, and maybe beyond, learning from each other, swapping stories, seeing what might be possible together.

In January 2026, GOBS will come together to reflect on the year that’s just passed and to imagine what comes next: we’ve been gathering and holding onto the ideas we’ve heard from our members, and are ready to play. We’re stepping into the next year with curiosity, compassion, and a shared intention to keep wellbeing at the heart of everything we do. It’s a tricky thing to build sustainability in the current climate, but we’ve now created a community that I’m sure will grow into pathways we can’t even imagine yet.

Follow: gobscollective.org

About Bridie

Bridie Squires is a writer, performance artist and producer from Nottingham. Founder and Director of GOBS Collective, her work spans across poetry, playwriting and journalism, and has been featured by BBC Radio 4, BBC Sounds and LeftLion Magazine. She has performed alongside Holly McNish, Lemn Sissay and Linton Kwesi Johnson, and has appeared at We Out Here festival. Her debut collection Duck on Bike was self-published in 2023 and her one-woman shows Casino Zero and Chaos Casino premiered at Nottingham Playhouse in 2023 and 2025 respectively.

Follow: bridiesquires.com | @brizzaling

Hey

It’s that time of year when we do a ‘quick’ round-up of all things Apples!! 

Big news for 2025 saw us going back to our roots and reclaiming the idea of performance poetry being what we are all about. Exciting times ahead!

As ever, we delivered loads of amazing work with a brilliant range of partner organisations and fabulous poets, with work happening everywhere from Bristol to Birmingham to Bradford. We worked in schools, libraries, at festivals, venues big and small, online and from a converted horsebox (Ivy).

Supporting and developing performance poets across the country is at the heart of what we do. For example, this year Associate Artistic Director Ty’rone worked with Coventry based poets and Belgrade Theatre on Playing Poetry.

“Playing Poetry is a talent development project all about exploration and play in performance poetry; how to make poetry pop and come alive on stage. This year saw ​​four emerging performance poets from Coventry work with four nationally established performance poets over the course of four weekends. The focus was on performance techniques, stage craft, movement, voice work, embodiment of the work etc. The poets worked with Miss Yankey, Jasmine Gardosi, Bradley Taylor and John Bernard. Resulting in a showcase to a sold out audience at Coventry Belgrade Theatre’s ‘See It First Festival’”

In 2025 we also delivered:

• Words A Stage 2.0 for early career poets, a series of online workshops and a week-long residential at Arvon
• Artists’ Retreats, bringing poets together to recharge, build connections and develop skills
• Scratch Lab with early-career poets in South London experimenting with group performances
• Online workshops to push craft and build community
• Enfield Young Producers – a Poet in The City programme upskilling the next generation of producers

…and supported UniSlam and Gobs Collective in Nottingham with their artist development programmes.

We launched ON:LINE our new winter masterclass series which runs until Feb 2026, still time to join: Book here!

Our podcast went visual! You can watch it here via our Youtube channel and we continued our partnership with the students at Elstree Screen Arts with more Blackbox.

We were delighted to be a partner with the Wandsworth, London Borough of Culture programme delivering a project in 10 primary schools to 300 Year 5 children as well as another 1200 children and teachers who attended. Our live SPIN performances were also part of the Schools Poetry Festival.

WORDCRAFT, our poet-in-residence programme in Ealing, came to a close – with teachers, children and poets all saying what a great project it had been.

“It was kind of magical, that memory is going to last my whole lifetime” – Year 6 Participant, Dairy Meadow Primary School, Southall

Libraries continued to be one of our favourite places to hang out. Our Saturday morning programme Telling Tales taking place as part of our Libraries Out Loud programme supported by John Lyons Charity.  In August, our Library Takeover project saw young people devise and produce an event with Brent Library Services.

We said a fond farewell to PLOT17, our hip-hop eco-show for children, which came to an end in 2025. For over 4 years it was on the road, delivering 77 shows in 12 locations, reaching over 7000 children and families. Ivy, our converted horsebox van is now off to new adventures!

And finally, keep a lookout for our announcement about our legendary night Jawdance, which, after 15 years at Rich Mix, is heading to a new home in Spring 2026!!  

I’ll end with a heartfelt thanks to all our funders and partner organisations:

ACE, John Lyons Charity, The Fenton Arts Trust, London Borough Of Wandsworth, London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Camden, Ealing, Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster & Harrow, Arvon, Rich Mix,  Belgrade Theatre, Mason & Fifth, Lyra Festival, Gobs Collective, Unislam, Young Identity, Birmingham City University, Ealing Learning Partnership, Lewisham Looked After Children Services, Stanley Arts, The Albany, Elstree Screen Arts, Fire and Dust and the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival.

And extra thanks and love to:

• All the amazing poets that we have the privilege to work with 
• Our fabulous trustees who give up their time and expertise to support the organisation so brilliantly
• Binita, Annie & Secoura @ The Space inBetween 
• Ahmed & Anthony @ D237 
• The Apples and Snakes team: Ben, Daniela, Iman, Janet, Marcelle, Mark, Natalie, Rob, Robert, Russell, Sarah, Ty’rone & Yelena for being awesome 

With love,

Lisa 

Using multiple artforms to engage young people with Care Experience.

I’d love to say my arts practice was forged in fire. It sounds good, doesn’t it?  It makes my arts practice sound tough. It’s not tough (is anyones?) but it is resilient.  

My creative journey began in metal bands, rehearsing in barns and organising gigs in village halls where brutal sludge acts performed under tapestries of saints, and amplifiers were stored in the pantry between sets. I then ended up in Brighton, where I was absorbed into a healthy hip hop scene, having been drawn over to the lyrical side by Dizzee Rascal and Roots Manuva. This involved lots of freestyle, and lots of battling. It was chaotic, unpredictable, and required a thick skin. And then I found poetry, where the chaos was lyrical, but not confrontational. Where audiences really listened and the variety of voices from the stage was inspiring.  

When I emerged on the poetry circuit, I was lucky enough to find myself working with Lewisham Children’s Services and Apples and Snakes, working with Care Experienced young people on a project called  Write Speak Feel. The sessions were chaotic, dynamic and full of warmth. We produced poems, songs and wrote a book. After the project I was honoured to return to host a number of award ceremonies and saw young participants grow into confident and articulate adults. 

My work with Care Experienced young people continued with Lewisham,  Virtual School, The Fostering Network, and in 2019 I established an interdisciplinary arts program, The Nest.  

The Nest program was designed alongside participants, and brought in artists from all mediums to collaborate with a group of Care Experienced young people. We had drummers, filmmakers, jewellery designers,  photographers, charcoal artists, painters, and everything in between. It was brilliant, and it was chaotic. We managed to maintain a sense of consistency with a solid team of facilitators and a single, cabin-compatible suitcase: ‘The  Suitcase of Dreams’. This was a suitcase brimming with art materials that we installed as an alternative to a breakout space. We situated The Suitcase of  Dreams just out of the way of the main workshop and if a participant needed some time to themselves, they could go to the suitcase and create freely.  ‘The Suitcase of Dreams’ allowed our participants to self-regulate without leaving the workshop space. Whether they returned to the main activity or not, they stayed with the session and created something the group could celebrate.  

When we expanded to set up cohorts in Bristol and Newcastle, the suitcase became a prerequisite to any Nest session.  

Outside of The Nest, I was regularly delivering creative writing workshops for young people with organisations including Apples and Snakes. One writing residency found me working with a group with a variety of needs, which I was struggling to meet with traditional techniques. I observed that certain participants were displaying adverse responses towards the act of writing; At the moment of putting pen to paper, it would kick off. I needed a new approach.  

In this particular group, there was a high percentage of Care Experienced students managing low literacy levels that are common with interrupted education and high levels of trauma. I realised that many of the students had complex relationships to their handwriting, or spelling, or met insurmountable difficulty shaping words on a page, or even a laptop. Drawing on my experience with The Nest, I began exploring new approaches to creative writing. I developed simple art exercises that I could direct with poetry prompts. I found visual art tasks that I could interrogate to create poems. I started to incorporate these new approaches and found students were less explosive, more engaged; it was working.  

The new interdisciplinary approaches sidestepped the potentially triggering act of writing and allowed a more embodied engagement with creativity.  

I saw an opportunity. Through my relationship with Lewisham CICC,  Apples and Snakes, and The Fostering Network, I had seen how challenging it can be to access young peoples’ thoughts around experiences of care. My idea was that by using these interdisciplinary techniques we can take a  trauma-informed approach to discussing difficult life experiences. I approached Apples and Lewisham and they were up for a tentative experiment. We began with an open poetry-and-painting project with the awesome Keeler Tornero, which gamified abstract painting and encouraged participants to dance on their canvases! And once we’d had some success with the approach, we ran a zine-making workshop in collaboration with brilliant zine artist, Liz Bell, exploring participants’ thoughts and ideas around being in care. It was a gorgeous session, characterised by warmth and unpredictability. And when the group came together at the end of the workshop, we were able to have gentle and insightful conversations. Participants’ thinking had already taken place in the creative process, and so we could enquire about the art, not the young person’s potentially traumatic life experiences.  

I used to wonder how I ended up working so regularly with Care Experienced young people. For a while I attributed my path to the rap skills that were so useful in engaging high-energy boys in literary devices. But upon reflection, I think there was something about resilience, and comfort in chaos, that served me better than even my GOAT-level rap abilities. Chaos can be overwhelming, but there is so much space for everyone within it. It allows for all ideas to be included. And there is something in these new approaches, combining embodied arts practices and poetry, that leans into this chaos, draws it in and harnesses its energy to ensure everyone feels like they can belong. 

Adam kammerling

Adam Kammerling is an award winning poet, theatre maker and educator.

His most recent works include Seder, his debut poetry collection which was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards, Shall We Take This Outside, a three-person spoken-word/dance theatre show that toured nationally, and Inside!, a piece of poetry/rave theatre commissioned by Centrepoint and the Saatchi Gallery.

A highly experienced educator, he has created spoken word and theatre with emerging poets, musicians and circus practitioners at the Roundhouse, The Albany and Pentonville Prison.

Insta: @adam_kammerling

Since my time with Apples and Snakes at Acts of Imagination, The Power of Art to Create A Better World, I’ve been thinking about how poetry can help us listen better, and how art affirms that we are all connected.

The show began with a performance by musician Tainara Takua. Within her set, Tainara spoke    about her indigenous Guarani Mbya background and the themes of nature, children and water woven within the lyrics of the songs she performed. I could not understand any of the words she sung, but I felt them. I could hear the river. I could see the children playing in the breeze. 

Qadir Jhatial, an artist from Pakistan, took a seat at the long table on stage. After an exercise where the audience was asked to close their eyes and imagine a future where the land is respected and thriving together with communities, Qadir began to speak. He let the audience know that he would be speaking in the Sindhi language. There was no translation, and again I did not understand a word he spoke, but I could feel each one. His hands moved like waves as he spoke, painting in the air.

The conversation continued to flow. Another person came to the stage and this time they spoke in Portuguese without translation. I was seated at the table at this time. I shared that hearing this communication between different languages made me think of something that often comes into my head, which is that nature also has a language. I explained that when I was in Barbados in the last year, where my family is from, there was a moment when I felt like I could hear the birds clearer and the clouds felt closer. Sitting by the Caribbean Sea, it felt like the turquoise waters knew me. It felt like returning to see relatives who said ‘wow, you’ve grown’. The ocean did not speak with words but I felt that sense of kin when I sat listening to the tides. Amber Massie-Blomfield, the host, asked how we re-develop our ability to listen to nature and the person speaking in Portuguese replied with words that will stay with me. She said that it is not only about listening to who and what we understand, but listening when we do not understand.

Another person in the audience, who said she was from Pakistan, came to sit at the table. She spoke in English and told the story of a tree being cut down from outside of her office window. It looked like she was moved to the brink of tears telling the story of how she tried to save the tree and the grief she feels for her loss. Not just the loss of the tree but all of the various life forms which that one tree supported. 

To listen to nature is to listen to what we might not understand. We know the name of a bird and their properties but does that mean we know that particular bird? Eco-poetry, similar to folktales, feels like a way of reminding myself that the bird also has an inner life, just like me. Even if some may think that is very woo woo, we can all do with making everyday life feel more magical.

Paying attention is something that has become more difficult with all of the ways we can distract ourselves. To hear a bird and to listen to a bird are two different things. I unconsciously hear birds throughout the day, but when I consciously take in the sunset, it feels like I am really listening to the birds. Although I do not know what they are communicating to each other, in choosing to still listen, there is a compassion that I feel towards those birds’ lives. 

This is also true with our fellow human beings. Each person in that room had a story of their relationship to nature. When the people around the table communicated with each other in different languages, it did not feel like each one was listening in order to reply. It felt like we were all listening to listen and respect all of the voices. I believe that when we come together in this way, with our many backgrounds and walks of life, being willing to listen even when we do not initially understand, we can collaborate creatively, and find unique ways of working together, just like nature. This reminds me of a time when I collaborated with another poet to write a piece. Our styles of poetry felt like two completely different languages although we both wrote in English, but by working together we created a very powerful poem. Each of the other poets who came on stage at Acts of Imagination (Anneliese Amoah, Bhumika Billa, Eileen Gbagbo) also have their unique voice and styles, and all of our words wove together like different threads of a tapestry in the audience’s minds.

Consider, I used to think that writing poetry was a way for me to be understood. It was a way for me to say everything I wanted to say, ordering the words how I felt was best and even being able to use poetic devices like rhyme and rhythm to place more emphasis in different places. Now though, I think poetry is making me feel comfortable with not being understood straight away. I can write one poem and each person in the room can come up with their own meaning for it, even if I did not write it in the most abstract way. At the same time, each person who feels connected to the poem, feels that way because something within the poem connected to some part of them. This is similar to compassion and it is why I see poetry as a way to make people feel more connected and compassionate towards other people and the world around us, even with lives that seem very different to our own.

Poetry can seem like a very solitary process when we are writing on our own, but actually poetry is very much about our co-existence and being in relationship with one another. Listening beyond the words, relating beyond understanding and not understanding. Through compassion, which requires an opening heart and mind, I believe we will also have more capacity to understand one another.

So much of life is to do with being in relationship. We are always in relationship, not only if we are in a romantic relationship. As well as family, friends, communities and coworkers, we are also in relationship with nature, whether we are aware of this or not. Being conscious of our relationship with the nature around us isn’t just about understanding our impact on the environment (although that is important). It’s also about the sense of belonging that comes from this awareness. One of my favourite books I’ve read in the last few years is ‘Unearthed’ by Claire Ratinon. Claire shares with us that though there are many things in life that tell us we do not belong, the land wants to be relationship with us. Whether it’s mainstream media and headlines, hate crimes, faceless people on social media, policies and scandals, institutional discrimination, or bullying, nature always affirms to us that no matter who we are, on whatever land we are on, we are worthy of feeling like we belong. Living in the inner city, I’ve found that finding some way of relating to nature can really help with this sense of connection. I know that with soaring train prices, it’s hard for some of us to go to the countryside or explore different parts of the country. Often times urban nature can be overlooked, but instagram pages like @outsidewithlira remind us to look up and see the joy of the birds, to look out for the fluttering butterflies, and to keep our senses open to little moments of natural awe. This is a practice that can really help us with making wonder, joy and belonging a rhythm in life rather than something that we have to wait for. Community garden groups, nature walk events and composting workshops are also great ways to meet new people in a meaningful way. Loneliness is experienced by many people today, in cities too, and so we know that it is not just about not having people around us. Even though we live in a world that on the surface is more connected than ever before, the amount of loneliness suggests a deeper crisis of disconnection, further impacted by the closing of many third spaces (places other than home and work where people can gather and build their own sense of community).

I left Acts of Imagination feeling that eco poetry and any art form that explores our connection to each other and the environment, is a reminder that no matter how many things try to break us apart, we are all parts of this one great ecosystem. After the poems, the songs, the art, and the theatre, we must continue to listen, pay attention and act from this place of connectedness if we are going to each play our role in transforming the challenges and suffering we encounter in our more immediate communities, and in the wider world around us.

About Adjei Sun

Adjei Sun is a poet, artist, performer and facilitator. Themes of his work include nature, identity and mental health. Adjei has performed and spoken nationally and internationally including for Ted X, BBC World Questions, The World Expo and The Natural History Museum. Adjei has formerly been recognised as a BBC 1Xtra Future Figure for his work in communities using poetry and creativity to bring people together and uplift youth voices through his work in schools and communities

Poet Anthony Anaxagorou explores his approach to poetic inspiration, embracing the confused, vulnerable, and the ordinary.

I’m inspired by the things I don’t really understand. There’s a common misconception that poetry is born out of some grand epiphanic moment. As if the poet sits down for twenty minutes, opens their Moleskine and begins to dispense with some of the most profound and tantalising verse known to humankind. Personally, I’ve never experienced such a thing. I tend to take months, years, to see where my impulses want to take me, and from there try to develop the ideas into something new and cohesive. I hate the thought of repeating myself in books, or overidentifying with a subject that readers or the market expect me to always write about. 

The moment I start to work on anything, I begin with a series of questions. Sometimes I know the answer, one which happens to be so infuriating or troubling that I want the reader to somehow find their way into that question’s malaise. I don’t want to give the answer away, but instead build a container that can house the question, so another is free to inhabit it. 

I have a fascination with the mundane, which is where most of us will spend the majority of our lives in. I find that the interplay between ordinary moments set against the complexities of social structures and theory make for rich poetic ground. 

The poems I chose for the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and WritersMosaic collaborative poetry short film series, UK Global Majority Poets on Film 2025, deal with ordinary, everyday themes. For the series, I read and turned into films my own poem, Things Already Lost, and Larry Levis’ After the Blue Note Closes – a poem which has had a profound influence on my work. Both poems deal with similar ideas, exploring masculinity, fatherhood, and connection. Within that specific tripartite lives an important insight into understanding the ways many men are socialised.

Over the years I’ve received some mild criticism aimed at how my poems tend to reinstate what’s regarded as the toxic side of masculinity – in that there’s a physicality and violence to them which some see as a performance of machismo. I agree, although I don’t necessarily see it as a negative, more so as a real-life dilemma being problematised through art, or at least that’s my intention. I have little interest in sanitising my poems, I want them to appear in places as ugly, uncomfortable and fractured expressions.  

In Levis’ poem the speaker is depicted as a bit of a degenerate; a philander, drinking alone in music bars until casually hooking up with a woman, perhaps looking for the same thing as he is. I admire the poem for its honesty and that subtle yearning. Levis creates a real sense of emptiness within an interior full of things, which in poetry we come to know as life and activity. It feels open in a way that accepts the moral dilemma the speaker is caught in, but also the selfishness of the individual too. Again, this is very ‘masculine’, but I think Levis manages to strike a balance between the aloof Lothario and the tender father which manifests as a kind of guilt and maybe even shame at the end of the poem. 

With my poem, Things Already Lost, I wanted to pull in ideas around touch and being touched through a series of frames – themes of disgust, nurture, accidents, safety and compromise all weave in and out of the scenes. Parenting is very much about accommodating another life, almost to the point your own life becomes completely eclipsed by that of your child, and I think we learn the different variations of touch and danger (which is also associated with care) through these kinds of events. 

Poetry as a medium offers opportunity for wider political and social commentary, something which is made even more potent when combined with the visual culture of film. But poems don’t necessarily need to set out to solve or resolve anything. Poems can hold many different ideas at once; sometimes contrasting and competing theories can be juxtaposed. 

I’m not really interested in poems as vehicles for ‘truth’. There’s something limiting, didactic and manipulative about poems which set out to prove a point or settle a score or convince the reader of a point of view. I appreciate those poems have a function and an audience but for me I find it better to try and create a multidimensional interior that resists slogans and imperatives and punch lines, where complex and nuanced ideas can exist and be explored with a more lateral push – one that can harness ambiguity, the senses and the mind too.

Poetry can encourage readers to allow themselves to feel confused and vulnerable. To get in touch with their own curiosity and embrace uncertainty. Any poem which is easily explained or pinned down is probably only working half as hard as it could be, and maybe doesn’t need to necessarily be a poem at all. Lots of lyric poems are just wanting to tell you something that happened to them, but in chopped up verse. I struggle to get excited about what I feel I already know to be true, or if the ideas lean so much into realism the language loses pressure and invention altogether. However, there’s also a fine balance in the kind of difficulty that wears a reader down or locks them out of the poem. That is also an issue with lots of writing. Personally, I’m always angling for that sweet spot which says I know what it means, I just can’t really explain it. It’s here amidst the uncomfortable and the uncertain where inspiration emerges and poetry can be itself.

About UK Global Majority Poets on Film 2025

UK Global Majority Poets on Film 2025 is a new short film series from WritersMosaic and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation expanding the reach of award-winning, global majority poets through the visual culture of film. You can watch the films on the WritersMosaic website.

About Anthony Anaxagorou

Anthony Anaxagorou FRSL is a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist and publisher.

His third collection, Heritage Aesthetics published with Granta Poetry in 2022, won the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2023 and was shortlisted for the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award. It was listed as one of New Statesman’s top books of 2022.

His second collection, After the Formalities published with Penned in the Margins, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the 2019 T.S. Eliot Prize along with the 2021 Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections. It was also a Telegraph and Guardian poetry book of the year.

In 2020 he published How To Write It with Merky Books; a practical guide fused with tips and memoir looking at the politics of writing as well as the craft of poetry and fiction along with the wider publishing industry.

Anthony is the artistic director of Out-Spoken, a monthly poetry and music night held at London’s Southbank Centre, and publisher of Out-Spoken Press. He is the editor-in-chief of Propel Magazine, an online literary journal featuring the work of poets yet to publish a first collection and the founder and curator of WriteBack, a quarterly literary series held at the British Library.

In 2019 he was made an honorary fellow at the University of Roehampton. In 2023 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Follow Anthony: anthonyanaxagorou.com/ | Insta @anthony_anaxagorou

About WritersMosaic

WritersMosaic is a developmental resource, division of the Royal Literary Fund and online magazine celebrating and showcasing writers of the global majority.

World Book Day is the annual celebration of books, it’s the perfect day to promote the wonderful world of reading, reciting, writing of poetry.

People from across the globe come together to revel in the joy of books and to celebrate how sharing words can bring people together in difficult times. Everyone, everywhere is invited to join in!

Apples and Snakes are marking World Book Day 2025 by sharing some of our favourite pieces from the recent SPIN anthology. To get your copy and to join this global band of wordsmiths just click the button below.

Happy Book Poetry Day 2025!

Eileen Gbagbo:

Summers at Grandma’s House

Jay Sandhu:

Mario Kart Pantoum

Ioney Smallhorne:

My Friend Finola

Gayathiri Kamalakanthan:

Ammā Means More Than Mother

Shagufta K Iqbal

There are Cats in the Mosque

Established in 1999, World Poetry Day has brought the brilliance, fun and enjoyment of poetry to millions of people across the world. Find out more about World Poetry Day here:

Young Producers q&a

Our Young Producers have been working incredibly hard over the last few months learning what it takes to plan and deliver a live poetry event. The Young Producer programme continued following our merger with Poet in the City and has been delivered in conjunction with Dugdale Arts Centre.

As the producers enter their final sessions and with their live event on the horizon we took a few moments to speak to some of the participants to find out why they decided to apply to the course, what they’ve learned during the past months and where the future might take them…

Toyosi Somoye

What do you think is the most important thing you have learned about producing?
The most important thing I’ve learned about producing is the value of adaptability. One key lesson the facilitators emphasized during the programme is that things will inevitably go wrong, whether on the day of the event or during the planning process. Being able to stay calm and adjust as new challenges arise is an essential skill for any producer.

Why do you think developing the next generation of Producers is important for the industry?
Developing the next generation of producers is essential for building a lasting legacy in the industry. It’s the responsibility of those who came before to share their knowledge, helping others avoid similar mistakes and grow stronger. Producers play a critical role in overseeing and managing projects, ensuring they come to life. By cultivating capable, passionate, and eager producers, we can sustain the poetry industry and continue attracting audiences to shows and events.

About Toyosi:

Toyosi is a British-Nigerian project manager, poet, and spoken word artist with a deep passion for storytelling.

As a TEDx speaker, she uses her words to build meaningful worlds, striving to make people feel SEEn (served, educated, and empowered) through her work.

Toyosi joined the Young Producers course to expand her skill set and deepen her understanding of bringing ideas to life, from conception to execution.

Alexandra Betts

Why is becoming a poetry producer important to you?
I enjoy giving people a platform to have a voice and express themselves. In producing poetry events, I enjoy being able to organise an event that brings together an audience and a speaker who shares their work in a personal and intimate space.

What have you enjoyed about the producer’s course?
I have enjoyed the opportunity to learn about a valuable job in the industry which I didn’t know much about before starting this course. I’ve loved knowing this course will give back to my local community by providing them with great entertainment and hopefully a new outlook or feeling to walk away with.

About Alexandra:

Alexandra Betts is a student and amateur theatre performer from a British-Columbian background based in Enfield, North London. She is a theatre lover with a growing interest in poetry and spoken word, who works to give people a voice. She has worked with Chickenshed Theatre Company’s summer programme to provide acting workshops to young children, and worked with the BBC in shadowing a TV drama director and their crew. She hopes to continue to grow into the industry, learning new roles and gaining new experiences across the wide world of creative arts and performance.

Faith Falayi

What have you enjoyed about the producer’s course?
I’ve really enjoyed meeting and working with all the other producers. There’s always a great energy in the room and it’s amazing to be able to bring all our talents and ideas together to create an event we’re proud of.

Why is becoming a poetry producer important to you?
It’s important to me because celebrating poetry and poets is a way to keep so many individual and interlinking communities alive. Giving space to these words, ideas and expressions has a lasting impact that goes far beyond the end of any poetry night.

About Faith:

Faith is a University of Cambridge English graduate, spoken word artist and creative based in Peterborough.

Her work focuses on documenting and archiving the art of everyday life. Currently, Faith works with the Peterborough Cultural Alliance to co-produce and host ‘Culture Talks’, a podcast celebrating and challenging the various aspects of cultural engagement in the city.

Zoe Athanasiou

Tell us about your plans once the sessions have finished?
Once the sessions have ended, I’ll keep working with the music organisations like Odyssey
Festival Orchestra (as the Social Media Manager) that I’m already involved with, putting
everything I’ve learned into practice. I’m also excited to have the confidence to produce
some projects of my own for example a local Enfield clothes swap event and local music and
poetry events using the skills and connections I’ve gained along the way.

Why is becoming a poetry producer important to you?
Becoming a poetry producer matters to me because I’m passionate about creating spaces
where the arts, especially spoken forms like poetry, are accessible to everyone. With my
undergraduate background in English Literature and Music from the University of Leeds, I’ve
always believed in the power of the arts to spark change and start important conversations.
I’d love to be part of amplifying voices through poetry and using it to make a real impact in
society.

Why do you think developing the next generation of Producers is important for the
industry?
Developing the next generation of producers is really important because learning these skills
isn’t always accessible with the cost of living, lack of funding for the arts and high
educational fees. A course like this is great because it lets young people build their skills
while still working full-time jobs, which makes a huge difference

What have you enjoyed about the producer’s course?
I’ve really enjoyed working with the facilitators and getting great advice from them during
the course. Learning the theory behind producing has been super interesting and helpful.
Plus, meeting other young producers and building a network has been such a lovely
experience!

About Zoe:

Zoé is a passionate producer with a BA English Literature and Music degree from the University of Leeds. She is driven by the belief that the arts can create social change and express culture, emotion, and feeling. A lifelong musician with a Diploma level in the Violin and Grade 8 proficiency in both Oboe and Piano, Zoé’s love for live events was sparked by her experience playing in multiple musical ensembles. Zoé is also a violinist and Social Media Manager for the Odyssey Festival Orchestra, contributing to concert production and marketing ideas. Her work is all about creating meaningful and accessible experiences while connecting communities through the arts.

Ebun Lawal

What has surprised you most about learning to become a producer?
I did not expect to have these many spreadsheets and planning involved in events. There are also so many unwritten rules that you should know that you tend to learn from experience. It was great to learn from people that have vast experience organising events.

What has surprised you most about learning to become a producer?
I will organise events in the Houses of Parliaments that will inspire young people to get involved in having their voices heard in politics.

About Ebun

My name is Ebun. I’m the founder of Corporate Jungle, we help connect Tech businesses with great sales people. I have organised events in Parliament, prisons around London and corporate spaces but this programme really forced me to understand the fundamentals! 

I hope you guys enjoy our event. 

Ozioma Ihesiene

Tell us about your plans once the sessions have finished?
After this programme, I plan to create poetry workshops that help people navigate the feeling of loneliness through creative expression. The Enfield Producers Programme has been invaluable in teaching me how to produce and orchestrate meaningful events in the world of poetry. My goal is to empower individuals to find connection and healing through their words, and I’m excited to bring these workshops to life and build spaces where creativity becomes a bridge to community.

About Ozioma

Ozioma Ihesiene is a dynamic creative force—an actor, writer, and director. She starred in the BAFTA-shortlisted short Festival of Slaps and won POCC’s “Future Perspectives” competition with her poem Prayer, which was showcased on billboards across the U.K. Her directorial debut, Before I Go, premiered at Theatre Peckham and sold out at Camden People’s Theatre and Brixton House, with the play now published text. She is part of the Enfield producers cohort, as she continues crafting spaces and impactful stories.

Now discover what our Young Producers have been creating over the last few months:

Rewind: Take me back

Friday 07 Mar, 7pm-9:30pm
Dugdale Arts Centre 

From the poetry performances to live music, expect a blast from the past that will have you unlocking memories you didn’t even know you forgot. This will be an exciting evening to bring your friend, bring a parent, bring your whole family along. This is an opportunity to experience a night of poetry and live music.

Apples & Snakes announces its first Trainee Artistic Director as Poet and playwright Ty’rone Haughton

We are very excited to finally share the news that Leicester based Ty’rone Haughton will be joining us for the next two years as Trainee Artistic Director. Ty’rone was named one of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Future Figures 2023 for his contributions to the arts and social care. He was selected through a highly competitive recruitment process from 37 excellent candidates. 

Ty’rone stood out to the selection panel as a multi-skilled artist and producer with extensive knowledge of the national spoken word community and social care sector. He has a strong and clear vision for what he wants to achieve as the Trainee Artistic Director at Apples & Snakes.  

This will be the first Trainee Artistic Director post for the company, created to address the shortage of potential artistic directors within arts and culture. This new role provides a direct opportunity for developing skills and experience for those interested in leadership and a new trainee will be appointed every two years.

Recognising that there is no real progression pathway into the cultural leadership roles that many of them seek, Apples & Snakes wanted to create an opportunity and pathway for these poets. It was conceived in response to feedback from the spoken word community, where poets are often innovators and creative entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds who show natural leadership. 

Ty’rone will shadow Apples & Snakes Artistic Director Lisa Mead across all aspects of the Apples & Snakes leadership. This includes creative producing, financial management, fundraising, human resources, partner relationships and communications with an extra budget available for additional training. The trainee programme is designed so that the first year will focus on training and development where Ty’rone will be supported to develop a strategic project to be delivered by the company in year two. 

Lisa Mead, Artistic Director, Apples and Snakes said: “We are delighted Ty’rone is joining us as our first Trainee Artistic Director. Our sector needs the talent and insight that artists like Ty’rone bring but they also need support and training to ensure they can fully realise their leadership potential. We have created this new role to address this gap in provision and help ensure there is equal opportunity at every level. As a small organisation, we can only support one trainee every two years and we call on our peers to replicate our initiative. Together we can create the next generation of leaders who may otherwise not have the resources or connections to break through and sustain senior roles.” 

Ty’rone Haughton said: “I have always held Apples & Snakes in high regard and been grateful for how they pioneered Spoken Word in the UK and believe in its vision and ambition. I think this new role is extremely important because arts and culture are full of artists who feel there is a glass ceiling or a cap to their equity in the sector. For Apples & Snakes to invest in someone like me prepares me for leadership through necessary training which isn’t available elsewhere. I hope this positive step is the start of a trend. 

The work of poets and the role of poetry in society is transformative; it is healing and empowering, which I have directly experienced. The more we can get poets and communities to engage, the more positive an impact we can make in the world. I want to foster a thriving national ecosystem of poetry opportunities and talent development, breaking down borders and siloes so we can begin to connect on a larger scale. Creating purposeful work with communities around the country. What I bring to Apples & Snakes is my ambition and innovation; I am someone who looks at what has already been done to find ways of building upon that. And I am always in search of what is new and exciting. Watch this space, as they say.”

…only 11% of children’s books published in 2021 featured a character from a Global Majority background. Even more starkly, just 2% of U.K. children’s authors and illustrators come from these communities.

mY jOURNEY INTO WRITING FOR CHILDREN

Writing for children wasn’t always part of my plan, though my career has consistently brought me into the orbit of young people and their stories. As a writer, educator, and advocate for creative expression, I’ve long believed in the power of words to shape young minds. Over the years, this belief has driven me to deliver writing workshops for children and young people through organizations like First Story, WEM, and the National Literacy Trust. I’ve had the privilege of being a writer-in-residence in three secondary schools, engaging students in the transformative magic of poetry and storytelling.

In my teaching role, I work with 15-19-year-olds, guiding them through GCSE English Language resits. Here, I see firsthand how powerful words can be in building confidence and creating connections. These experiences have deeply influenced my understanding of what young audiences need and how they connect to literature. But until recently, I hadn’t thought of myself as someone who writes specifically for children.

That changed in 2022 when I was selected for the Joseph Coelho/Otter Barry Books/Apples & Snakes, Diversifying Children’s Literature project. This initiative, which aims to amplify underrepresented voices, culminated in the children’s poetry anthology Spin, where five of my poems found a home. It was a pivotal moment—one where I began to see how my voice and perspective could resonate with younger readers.

Then, in 2024, I joined the Apples & Snakes, Simon Mole and CLPE’s Writing for Primary Audiences project. This experience reignited my love for poetry and opened a new chapter in my creative journey. It was here that I began working on a poetry collection about meteorology, climate change, and weather systems, a topic inspired by my Caribbean heritage and its deep connection to the natural world.

Representation in U.K. Children’s Literature

Despite my growing passion for children’s literature, it’s impossible to ignore the significant barriers faced by writers like me. Representation in U.K. children’s publishing remains alarmingly disproportionate. According to the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), only 11% of children’s books published in 2021 featured a character from a Global Majority background. Even more starkly, just 2% of U.K. children’s authors and illustrators come from these communities. I’ll pause to allow that statistic to cyclone for a moment…

These statistics are a sobering reminder of the urgent need for change. Stories shape how children see themselves and others, and the lack of diverse voices limits not only representation but also the richness of narratives available to young readers. As a writer with Caribbean heritage, I feel a deep responsibility to contribute stories that reflect the multiplicity of experiences within our global community.

Projects like the ones I’ve been part of— Spin and the Writing for Primary Audiences initiative —are crucial steps toward addressing this imbalance. They show that when marginalized voices are given space and support, they can create stories that resonate across cultures and generations.

What’s Next

My first children’s poetry collection is currently taking shape. Inspired by my Caribbean heritage and first hand experiences living there, the collection explores themes of weather, climate change, and meteorology through a lens that is both scientific and deeply personal. It weaves together the beauty and power of the natural world with the urgency of addressing climate change—a topic that feels especially relevant to today’s young readers.

Alongside the collection, I am developing a scratch theatre show, working title, Be a Hurricane. This interactive, educational performance is designed for 7-11-year-olds, blending live soundscapes with storytelling. It’s a space where children can not only learn about weather systems but also contribute their own voices to the performance, making it a truly collaborative experience.

As I move forward, I’m excited about the opportunities to connect with young audiences in meaningful ways. Writing for children has become more than a creative endeavor for me—it’s a mission to inspire, educate, and represent. By sharing stories that reflect the world’s diversity and its challenges, I hope to ignite curiosity, empathy, and action in the next generation.

Final Thoughts

This journey into children’s literature feels both new and familiar, a continuation of the work I’ve always done to empower young people through poetry. The path ahead is full of challenges—breaking into a predominantly white, middle-class publishing industry is no easy feat—but it’s also filled with possibility.

Representation in children’s literature is not just about numbers; it’s about ensuring every child sees themselves as part of the story. It’s about crafting worlds where all voices matter and where the complexities of our shared humanity are celebrated. I’m honored to play a part in that effort and excited to see where this journey takes me next. 

Ioney Smallhorne

Ioney is a writer, poet, performer & educator from Nottingham. Her craft is ignited by her Jamaican heritage, fueled by the tapestry of the Black British experience, & smolders with the essence of the natural world & womanhood. 

An alumni of Goldsmith College’s MA in Creative Writing & Education, Obisidan Black Poets 2023, & Peepal Tree Press Inscribe writer program. Shortlisted for the Caribbean Small-Axe prize 2016 &, for the Sky Arts/Royal Society of Literature Fiction Award 2021. Winner of the Writing East Midlands/Serendipity Black Ink Writing Competition 2021 & longlisted for the Moniak Mhor, Emerging Writer award 2024. She was the 2022 New Art Exchange resident artist & selected for the Middle Way Mentoring program, 2023-2025.

Find her work in Spin, children’s Poetry anthology (Otter-Barry Books), and Glimpse, the first Black British speculative fiction collection, (Peepal Tree Press).

This Summer I visited Trinidad to have some dedicated writing time away from England. I was introduced to Mtima Solwazi the founder of the Roots Foundation, a spoken word organisation using local oral traditions to uplift local poets and spoken word artists, advocating for social change. Immediately he decided to include me in their annual Cascadoo Festival in August, already familiar with my work. They had not had an international poet join their festival since before the lockdown.

I was their headline poet performing in different venues across Trinidad, from Wing It on ‘D Avenue’ to joining the event at the Urban Farmer’s restaurant in Enterprise. When arriving, there was a lot of fearmongering with Trinidad being notoriously known for having some of the highest crime and murder rates in the world. Everywhere I went, I was warned “be careful, stay safe”. The people of Trinidad and Tobago were really kind and welcoming, which challenged existing colonial stereotypes of such communities.

Alongside being spoilt witnessing epic steel pan bands playing regularly in Port of Spain and at the Emancipation Village, I was booked to perform and facilitate at NALIS Library, alongside Roots Foundation local poets. I facilitated a workshop to young people on using spoken word and poetry as a tool for change, using my poetry films as examples. 

We discussed the flammable cladding on Grenfell in West London that took 72 lives, including 18 children predominantly from African and Muslim communities. We discussed the murder of child Tamir Rice in America by police in 2014, the genocide in Palestine and the unnecessary murder and crime rate in Trinidad. We drew parallels around the concerns of inner-city communities in both Trinidad and England, the impact of youth violence and neglected young people, police negligence and the residue of colonialism and white supremacy. 

A young person who attended the workshop was moved to tears mentioning his godmother who lives in England, understandably worried about her safety since the rise of far-right fascists attacking Africans and Muslims in England this Summer. The ripple effect of British fascism impacting the psyche of a young man in Trinidad in the Caribbean, having to worry for his loved ones and anxieties of his own safety when intending to move to England was upsetting. A healing and honest space was provided for the young people in attendance at the workshop. We ended the session performing poetry for them.

We facilitated a workshop at St Jude’s School for Girls, a school attended by young girls who are part of the care system and removed from their homes after being victims of domestic and sexual violence, perceived as ‘difficult’. Deneka Thomas, Trinidad’s legendary poet and founder of poetry night Bacano Leaf and local National Poetry Slam finalist, joined us to facilitate alongside Geron Ruiz, a talented finalist for the recent Youth On Stage competition.

We supported the young people to understand how to write a spoken word piece, each of us performed to give them an example of what their poem could potentially look like. We gave them some writing time and the girls ended the session by sharing what they wrote. The majority wrote about their rights as young girls, feelings of disappointment and betrayal by those who were meant to take care of them, the impact of misogyny – their own words of resistance and affirmation was displayed. The benefit of sharing the art form we love and passing this cathartic tool on was experienced in it’s fullness. 

The most profound workshop I appreciated being part of facilitating was at the Youth Training Centre, a jail for young people in Trinidad. There were 30 teenage boys in attendance and 2 young women. The incredible local Roots poets Emmanuel Villafana, Geron Ruiz and Michael Logie facilitated used Trinibad lyrics, Calypso and Soca lyrics as examples of poetic writing. I recited a poem l’d written about invasions in Jenin and Jenin’s youth martyred in Palestine. We collectively mind mapped topics they felt passionately about. Their growth and self-reflection could be felt in such a short space of time.

They wrote about not wanting to be back in jail, to want more for themselves, “I’ve done the crime now I’m doing the time”. They started off with examples like “squeeze the trigger like orange” to writing about wanting change. They were super talented and expressed themselves beautifully.

One of the boys he sat down twice not wanting to share what he wrote.I got up with him on the stage to support him and he sang his lyrics full of hope stunningly. We must never underestimate how far a little encouragement can go in empowering people.

Often, we can wait for Arts Council funding or a formal invitation prior to booking a flight. Sometimes it’s good as writers to network and reach out to organisations doing similar work when travelling, to have an experience as a writer and performer and not just merely sit by the swimming pool. My way of learning about a community I travel to live amongst and to understand their struggles is via grassroots organisations, through community work and immersing myself in the arts.

Youth work for me is not something I merely do on a whim in England, I continue the work informally or formally when in different countries to ensure youth empowerment continues and young people who do not have the means to travel, can broaden their perspective through engagement.

Trinidad and Tobago’s poets and performers are of a highly skilled standard as witnessed through Derron Sandy’s work. Their calibre and style encouraged me to step up and put more love into my performances, something I don’t usually have time to develop when always responding to emergency situations in the community or not having rehearsal space.

I walked away from Cascadoo Festival inspired as a writer and performer and hope to return and support the vision of the Roots Foundation collective as a second-generation Indian migrant poet raised in England with a love for Trinidad and Tobago and their rich culture. 

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Shareefa Energy

Shareefa Energy is a working-class South Asian award winning poet, writer, activist, community organiser and creative campaigner challenging British state violence, based in Leicester and London. She is the author of poetry collection Galaxy Walk, endorsed by the late Benjamin Zephaniah. Her poetry has featured on BBC The One Show, Channel 4 and ITV. She’s facilitated creative writing, poetry, storytelling and performance workshops internationally, from Palestine to Sierra Leone with schools, universities, academics, in prisons and immigration detention centres, with survivors of domestic violence and with those impacted by state violence. She facilitates nature, poetry and wellbeing workshops too, inspired by her spent time in the Amazon rainforest in Venezuela. She is a long-term supporter of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice.

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Chilled honest rulebreaker.

What inspires you?

My younger self and wanting to make that kid proud of me. My mother and my sister.

Tell us about your worst ever gig?

I’m not saying I phoned in this performance, but I usually memorise my poems so that I can properly perform them. This one time, I hadn’t managed to memorise the piece so I read from my book thinking I’d be fine since I’d have the words in my hands. I was not fine. I completely skipped the second line in my poem, kept losing my place, couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone, skipped over all the beats and pauses. It was a mare. Safe to say I’ve learnt my lesson: reading isn’t easy.

What’s your number one poetry pet peeve?

I can’t do super long preambles. How are you telling me your preamble is longer than your poem?? I came here for poetry big man, I’ve got podcasts at home.

Whose words do you love at the moment?

Gabrielle Calvocoressi. I’m obsessed with both of her Miss You poems and often find myself returning to them. Right now, I prefer ‘Miss you. Would like to grab that chilled tofu we love.’ but I know I’ll eventually go back to preferring ‘Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.’ and the cycle will never end.

What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t shy away from being different; lean into it and learn to grow up with yourself constantly. 

If you were stuck in a lift with a stranger, what song would you suggest you sing to keep your spirits up?

I wouldn’t need a song. I’d be that annoying person who would strike up a convo with them. And if they don’t reciprocate, that’s fine. I’ve probably got books in my bag to keep me company. I’d take my corner and sit down for some nice reading time. If anything, they’d probably be the one to start singing.

About Zakariye

Zakariye is a poet, performer, playwright and filmmaker from Birmingham. His work often explores masculinity, faith and identity. His short poetry film ‘Cages’ has been broadcast on BBC 4 and BBC iPlayer. Last year saw him reach the finals at the Roundhouse Poetry Slam where he won the audience vote.

He is currently a Roundhouse resident artist working on a one-man stage play.

Insta: @zakariyyee

By: Shaniqua Benjamin

Although I’ve always loved writing, I stayed away from poetry until my early 20s. Fashion design had been my focus, so when I dropped out of university to pursue a career in writing and eventually discovered that poetry was the avenue for me, it was clear that I would need serious learning and development. Apples and Snakes were a major part of that, helping me grow from baby poet to Croydon Poet Laureate.

At the beginnings of my journey in 2017, I participated in a Croydon edition of The Writing Room, led by the amazing Zena Edwards. Zena would mentor me a year later as an emerging poet for Rallying Cry, an immersive spoken word show celebrating Apples and Snakes 35^th birthday, which is an experience that has stayed with me.

In fact, my 10-minute piece evolved into a 45-minute one-woman show I debuted last year – Love Warrior. Zena mentored me through that process too, having remained a major presence in my poetry career – even in moments when she hasn’t been physically present, her words of wisdom have remained in my mind. I will always be grateful to Apples and Snake for introducing me to her.

The development opportunities available to me through Apples and Snakes helped me grow into a more confident and stronger poet. Participating in the Red Sky Sessions, as a poet over 25 in the middle stages of my career, has allowed me to further explore my poetic voice and overcome my fear of form. 

The confidence and growth played a major part in me becoming the poet I am today, who can say that she is Croydon’s first Poet Laureate. I laid the groundwork through my community presence and running a poetry night for young people, but the poetic skills needed were elevated through mentoring, critique and learning from my peers, which I experienced as part of The Writing Room and Rallying Cry.

I officially became Croydon Poet Laureate in October 2020 and I’m now coming to the end of my tenure, four and a half years later. It has been a full-on rollercoaster of a journey that has encompassed some great projects, giving me the chance to engage with my borough on a deeper level. I’ve worked with schools and community groups, collaborated with musicians and dancers.

I worked with the National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Croydon on Citizen UK: Croydon’s Caribbean Influencers, which has been the main highlight. This project brought together my Caribbean heritage and Croydon home, telling powerful stories that often go unheard. I had the gift of responding to interviews and oral histories in poetic form, alongside the artist Kyam who created portraits and the designer Abi Wright who brought the exhibition together. To see it displayed at the National Portrait Gallery after being exhibited at the Museum of Croydon, with my poetry both seen and heard, was a very special moment. It was beautiful to see Croydon celebrated in a positive light.

I’m now in the midst of my final project, which is bringing together all I’m passionate about with all I’ve wanted to achieve as Poet Laureate, and then some. Out of Silence is an intergenerational project, amplifying and empowering local voices, especially those marginalised. It is also showcasing poetry as more than boring words on a page for an elitest few (which is how many still view poetry), but a versatile and vibrant art form for everyone.

Workshops led by Croydon based poets Beverly Bossanga, Daisy Nash, Zhanai Wallace, Jamal Hassan, Jemilea Wisdom-Baako, and myself have been – and are still – taking place with teens, young adults and elders. Across the eight schools and community groups participating, some are refugees speaking English as a second or third language, some are disabled, some have never written poetry before. And the poems have all been beautiful, powerful, real, raw and heartbreaking. I’m so proud I have the chance to share the words of these gifted individuals, who I hope realise how brilliant they are and that their words have meaning. More than anything, I hope they feel heard and feel seen.

The poems will be shared at a live event, which will be private I’m afraid, but more excitingly, they are being made public through the poetry posters you’ve seen throughout, showcasing extracts from every single poem written. The QR code has a link to an online anthology with more information about the project and the poems in full too, so you can savour all their words, but if you want a shortcut, just click here.

These are the first round of the posters, showcasing most extracts from the schools and a few from a youth group I will continue working with this month. The rest of their poems, along with the poetic extracts by young adults and elders, will be displayed from June. The posters were designed by Croydon young people too, in collaboration with a local graphic designer, so it really is a project rooted in Croydon as I say goodbye to my role.

To cement my legacy, I’ll be writing a poem bringing together words from each of the eight groups, which will be made into a short film. Just as finding poetry, and organisations like Apples and Snakes, helped me find my voice and grow in confidence, I hope that Out of Silence will have encouraged and inspired the participants (and beyond) to do the same.

If you’re in the Croydon area, keep an eye out for the posters, and if you choose to take any photos, please do use the #OutofSilence.

Shaniqua Benjamin

Shaniqua is a poet, writer, creative workshop facilitator, and Croydon’s first Poet Laureate. Between 2016-2021, she ran Young People Insight CIC, a platform that empowered young people through creativity, conversation and writing.

Shaniqua wrote the lyrics for the London Mozart Players’ Anthem for Peace, and a specially commissioned poem for their Oratorio of Hope, which opened Croydon’s year as London Borough of Culture in 2023. She also wrote a poem for the 2022 One Young World Summit, read by Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Ebinehita Iyere and herself. She has been published by Ink, Sweat & Tears,Magma, and RRB Photobooks with her poetry featured in Ameena Rojee’s photography book Crocus Valley.

She has performed at Field Day Festival and the Trinity College Cambridge Black History Month Formal Dinner. Shaniqua has facilitated workshops for organisations, including Spread The Word, Central St Martins, and Crisis. Her work has been displayed at the National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Croydon.

Twitter: @ShanqMarie
Instagram: @shaniquabenjamin_
LinkedIn: Shaniqua Benjamin

(Photo credit: Chetna Kapacee)

Quirky – Vibrant – Stubborn

What inspires you?

This, I suppose, is an answer of contradiction. What inspires me to write does not inspire me. Often I write because of the feeling that I must – I often write about the current political climate (which is not what I would call inspiring, but certainly inspires me to write!). 

I also write about family, grief, introspection and landscapes; and what inspires me most in all of these themes is mundanity – everyday things that others might not think twice about. I have a whole poem about waiting for the bus, for example.

Tell us about your worst ever gig?

I’d say my worst gig was when I first started ‘properly’ and took part in a slam (without really preparing) – votes for the slam were judged with claps and, lets just say, I didn’t get many. I learnt from it though, and went back to win it a year later.

What’s your number one poetry pet peeve?

My number one poetry pet peeve is less about the writing of poetry, but the classification of poetry – that is to say that I hate the ingrained distinction, in some circles, between spoken word and page poetry, as if those things cannot be one and the same, and as if one of those forms is more worthy.

I hate any form of prescriptivism within poetry in terms of what words are and aren’t suitable to be in poems, such as dialect or phonetic writing when representing an accent – those are all of the things in poetry that I love.

Whose words do you love at the moment?

In terms of ‘big names’, Holly McNish is a poet whos words always pull at something within me.  She writes on topics which are relatable and everyday, but does it in a way which captivates me every time. 

I’m very lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing poets in my local area, and have so many of them attend my poetry night. There are some local voices that really scratch my brain, here is just a couple:

First of all, Cooper Robson, who is, what I would class as a primarily political writer, but who also has better control over humour in writing than anyone else I’ve ever seen.

Secondly, Lizzie Lovejoy, who writes a poem every single day (which blows my mind). They are a wonderful Northern voice writing about big themes like Northerness, introspection, politics, history and heritage. They always hold the room in the palm of their hand.

What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

I would say, above all else, keep writing. Don’t ever stop. Listen to that relentless feeling inside of you which tells you, when all else seems impossible, pick up a pen. 

Who was your favourite poet/ spoken word artist when you were younger?

I didn’t necessarily have one favourite – I am a person who collects favourites and rarely loses them; I think I will forever just keep adding to my collection of favourites.

One poet who did stick with me and who I refer back to a lot is actually one I was lucky enough to work with when I was 13 or 14, as he was a facilitator of the New Writing North young writers’ group I was a part of, Paul Summers. The reason his work has stayed a staple in my life is because he uses his dialect – steeped in oral traditions, and gives it pride of place in a world that often doesn’t see local dialect as worthy of a place in poetry or publication – this school of thought is one I know Paul and I vehemently refute, which is why I think his work has stayed at the forefront of my mind all this time.

About Amy Langdown

Amy Langdown is a writer, facilitator, producer and artist based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Amy is primarily a poet who writes a lot about the current political climate in the UK and the wider world, but also on topics such as mental health, introspection, family, grief and landscapes. Amy started writing as a way to express difficult and confusing feelings in an artistic way and it is now an intrinsic part of life. In 2022, Amy started the Out of Your Head! poetry night and continues to run it monthly, both finding a place in, and growing the local poetry scene. Amy shares poetry and other artistic projects on instagram at @amylangdown_ .

Amy’s website: amylangdown.co.uk

Amy’s poetry night insta: @ooyh_poetry

Amy is part of Future Voices. Find out more about the project here: https://applesandsnakes.org/project/future-voices/

Creative, talkative, irritating.

What inspires you?

History, culture and weird lore. I’m also very inspired by mediocrity. Part of me thinks, “Well, I can definitely do better than that,” which fires me up to do my thing.

Tell us about your worst ever gig?

I’ve only done a handful of poetry gigs and they’ve all been lovely. But my grand return to the stage was a disaster. I corpsed. For ages. I never used to forget lines, and was always able to improvise if anyone else did. It was humiliating, and I’m still haunted by it.

What’s your number one poetry pet peeve?

Poems that are basically blog posts. Where’s the poetry?

Whose words do you love at the moment?

In poetry, fellow Cypriot Anthony Anaxagorou. In prose, Ann Patchett, always. I just don’t know how she captures humanity so well, seemingly effortlessly.

What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

Write the things you most want to write, that express who you are, not what you think is expected of you.

What’s your favourite dessert?

Melomakarona — a Christmastime treat we have in Greece and Cyprus. It’s a soft biscuit made with orange, cinnamon and cloves, soaked in syrup and sprinkled with chopped walnuts.

About Polis Loizou

Polis is a Cypriot author, playwright, poet, performer and oral storyteller. His debut novel was long-listed for Polari First Book Prize. He lives in Nottingham.

Polis is part of Future Voices. Find out more about the project here: https://applesandsnakes.org/project/future-voices/

Insta: @polisloizou

Twitter: @PolisLoizou

Website: www.polisloizou.com

I was invited to The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp in the West Bank in Palestine as lead facilitator for the 2022 ‘Through The Eyes of Women – Feminist Theatre Festival,’ to deliver poetry and creative writing workshops, alongside performing poetry in Jenin and Ramallah. I last facilitated poetry and public speaking workshops with students in the West Bank in Nablus at An-Najah University in 2011. Workshop and performance schedules were postponed and cancelled last minute throughout the festival on numerous occasions, due to locals being murdered when the Israeli army invaded the camp. Witnessing the pressure on local Palestinian actors and students and The Freedom Theatre staff having to repeatedly reschedule and join local strikes, was an unfair reality. Palestinian creatives schedule is dictated by the Israeli occupation, the overbearing anxiety of a bereavement occurring close to home at any given moment.

I do workshops in England in schools, universities etc and I am also an activist and facilitator, working with those directly impacted by state violence from Britain to Palestine. Most of my work in institutions is about educating and presenting narratives. When working with communities who have deep trauma from experiencing state violence, the focus is on writing being a cathartic release, addressing a wound, releasing it, allowing a place for the rage and grief to sit externally. To look after my mental and physical health, poetry had to emerge for me to be able to process the burden of state violence inflicted on our communities. I always understood the importance of supporting others to release and not just experience the pain of existing in this unjust world.

Facilitating in Palestine required patience and understanding of the occupation and not having usual expectations, knowing last minute my performance could be postponed mid rehearsal cause the neighbours family was now bereaved. The Freedom Theatre continues to be a safe space for young people and children, attempts to continue as ‘normal’. The blessing of being a facilitator whose supported the Palestinian cause for decades, meant holding space with young people and women about their life experiences and providing a creative outlet through poetry. I was able to present them realities in Britain, talk to them about Tamir Rice, about Grenfell, about gentrification in Tottenham and critique white liberal feminism. My workshops were more than just a space to write, they were a safe space to converse, to be asked questions on topics that were taboo, open discussions about women’s rights locally, listen to their wishes for young girls in Jenin, having young men come forward wanting to discuss the impact of domestic violence on their lives.   

On my second night of arriving in Jenin Refugee Camp, a 17-year-old Palestinian boy Dirar Kafrini was murdered horrifically by sniper by the Israeli army in Jenin Refugee Camp. The theatre paused the festival in solidarity with Dirar’s family. I witnessed numerous local and national strikes during my 2 months in Palestine. Respecting the local communities’ decisions and being ready to accelerate or brake accordingly was needed, without taking it personal. Gaza was bombed on Friday 5^th August, my performance at Fragments Theatre in Jenin had rightfully been postponed in solidarity with Gaza. I was grateful The Freedom Theatre made the decision to reschedule the event. We weren’t in the mood to reduce casualties to poetry soundbites, as though words were enough to commemorate innocent martyrs when blood on the streets hadn’t dried. 

Facilitating respite and a safe space for young people to process was an honour, to pass on writing skills and see people surprised when uniting with the poet in them, encouraging them to express their own stories and be autonomous in this struggle, challenging this idea of ‘voiceless’ communities. A 16-year-old only just started to process immense loss from when he was a child, my role was to prioritise listening over writing, converse and only then support him to write about it, to get it off his chest and remember his voice and grief is valid. 

I’ve written a lot of poetry about Palestine that I perform regularly in the community, at protests etc to unite people to show solidarity with Palestinians. I mention Palestine when I’m performing at an anti-racism conference, use my role as a poet and educator to speak up about apartheid at a plush venue in Shoreditch and in the classroom. 

“You want me to write about the martyr

And my mind asks, which one?

You want to write. About Salah but not about Yousif

About Ibrahim. But not about Ebtisam.

About Shireen. But not about Baraa’.

About Sind and not about Yazid.

 I don’t write about my friend

 martyred at the gates of Jenin Refugee Camp, 

beaten to death by the hands of Israelis

the burning tyres didn’t protect him.”  Jamal Abujoass (22, The Freedom Theatre student)

Facilitating workshops under the Israeli occupation in Palestine where extrajudicial killings is a regular occurrence, is about being mindful and politically aware of the dynamics and sensitive towards the layers of grief and injustice the community continue to be exposed to. Unlike working with North Kensington community after the Grenfell fire with PTSD, Palestinians do not have ordinary PTSD. The trauma is ongoing with no respite, awaiting another raid, another loss of life of someone close, hearing another staff member was harassed at a checkpoint and kidnapped under administrative detention like The Freedom Theatre chair Bilal Al-Saadi and the co-founder of the theatre Zakaria Zubeidi in Israeli prison. On the morning of 21^st November 2022, Mahmoud Al-Sadi, a 17-year-old trainer for The Freedom Theatre Child and Youth Program from Jenin refugee camp was murdered by the Israeli army during a raid on his way to school. The theatre devastated went into collective mourning, he was a part of the theatre since he was a child, accessing art and laughter away from the brutal reality of the occupation outside. Even he couldn’t escape the occupations bullets. 

Jamal told me he wished he could have lived a life where he could hear the sound of music solely in the air like the rest of the world, not the daily violent music of gunshots in Jenin Refugee Camp. I wondered what beautiful freedom he would write about as a talented writer if life under occupation wasn’t forever present in his psyche, forced to be on high alert. He is forced to confront the Israeli occupation daily through his poetry. I have the privilege of being further removed from this reality, only writing about Palestine when something emotionally upsets me and the choice to recite about Palestine. It’s an option to disrupt and discuss using poetry, there is no option for Jamal. 

‘You can’t write poems about trees when the woods are full of policemen.’ Berthold Brecht

Days after I left Palestine at the end of September, the Israeli army begun raiding Jenin Refugee Camp during the day as well as in the dead of the night. On 3^rd November, Ahmed Tobasi the artistic director of The Freedom Theatre and actor recorded a powerful video in despair, when could they continue as a Theatre like the rest of the world without interruptions and fearmongering by the occupation.  

Only when the Israeli occupation crumbles will artists in Palestine be able to exist and create without the perimeters of the overbearing ghoul of the occupation. They are forced to navigate this reality, to use art to advocate their rights to the international community.  International poets, artists and practitioners need to push more in solidarity with Palestinians to ensure we all have an equal right to freedom and the space to write, create and perform without worrying about the next military raid, the next blackout during a workshop cause the Israeli army showed up and cut off the electricity. Palestinians are not mere soundbites to cram into one line of a poem. They are loved, they are part of communities, they are martyred youth who will be missed. Everyone deserves the right to create without such heaviness, grief and violent interruptions surrounding their everyday.

I scroll on twitter to see Jenin Refugee Camp has been raided by the Israeli occupation and a massacre has taken place weekly, I rush to check on my friends and the young people I worked with in Palestine concerned of their safety and their grieving process. A 17-year-old lost another friend days apart, who was also a child. I remind him to write in the book I gifted him for him to continue to express himself during my absence and utilise the coping tools I shared with him. He’s young and bright, yet there’s sorrow in his eyes and ongoing hauntings. I’m stuck on crediting how practical poetry is when Palestinians live under such turbulence, though it provides glimmers of hope and the safe space for conversations that would have stayed buried under the mantlepiece rug, it allows the international community to feel. I instruct the young people to write about coffee as a warmup exercise. “I dislike the taste of coffee like how I detest the Israeli army who harasses my community,” a teenager writes. Every line is riddled with the presence of the occupation. How much longer will this ongoing trauma be allowed to continue?

Please support https://www.artistsonthefrontline.com www.freedomtheatre.com

about Shareefa Energy

Shareefa Energy is a poet, performer, writer, author, activist, educator, creative campaigner, workshop facilitator and arts and wellbeing practitioner of Indian and Muslim heritage from Leicester and London. She is the author of poetry collection Galaxy Walk. Her poetry is raw, honest and consistent against injustice. She was awarded with the UK Entertainment Best Poet 2017 Award, a nominee for the Muslim Women Arts & Entertainment Awards 2021 and for the Eastern Eye Arts, Culture & Theatre 2019 award by the Arts Council. 

​Her poetry has featured on BBC The One Show, Channel 4 and ITV. She has facilitated creative writing, poetry, storytelling and performance workshops internationally, from Palestine to Sierra Leone with schools, universities, academics, in immigration detention centres, with survivors of domestic violence and with those impacted by state violence.

Twitter: @ShareefaEnergy

Insta: @shareefaenergy

Shareefa’s Website: https://www.shareefaenergy.com

Since 2018, I’ve had many conversations in climate and environmental circles with organisations such as Julie’s Bicycle and Culture Declares Emergency and found that there was a part of the climate conversation that was missing. People were talking about self-care. Rest was a big feature but what was missing was a moment to just stop and assess what it is you need that looked like nothing at all. I decided to create a creative event entitled “The Pause”. 

I took to the concept of pausing our hectic lives to encourage a practice of taking a beat, a breath, a moment of inaction to calm the body and settle the chemical, electrical and hormonal charges that course through the body, before launching into the next flurry of action. Even if it was an act of self-care.

Image: Zena Edwards leading the workshop at The Pause Field Lab.

The day had a journey to embodiment and planned like this: 

1. We would watch a screening of “Can I Live?”, an hour-long film with a powerful blend of spoken word, live music,  movement and theatre written and performed by Fehinti Balogun
2. A post- screening Q&A. Lunch (which was delicious).
3. A poetry writing exercise and discussion in reflection of the film.
4. And last but by no means least, an experimental embodiment and storytelling session run by the incredible Stacy Makishi.

The writing and actor’s artistry of Fehinti and the imaginative production experience and skills of the theatre-makers ‘Complicité’ is the collaborative tour de force that brought “Can I Live?” into the world. This hour-long multimedia poetic film explores the tumultuous awakening of one individual to human-fuelled climate change, environmental disparity, and the looming ecological crisis. To the protagonist, Fehinti himself, it became increasingly vital for him to take meaningful action.

As we sat through this thought-provoking and fiery film, one fear or concern reared its head that resonated deeply with many of us: the fear of irreversible damage to our planet and the well-being of future generations. This film was a stark reminder that the consequences of climate change are not a distant future but a present reality.

Following the screening, we had the privilege of an engaging Q+A session with Fehinti, delving into the complexities of making a piece like this: as a person of colour, where does his voice fit in the climate change conversation; how do you get others especially friends and family to care as much as you do; what do you do with the anger at the politics around climate change and what can you do so you feel like you’re doing enough to be part of the solution? 

Because the day was titled ‘The Pause’, Fehinti was asked how he would pause. He spoke frankly about his own burn-out. His advice was to be vigilant about how much energy and passion you invest in collectives and movements overtly pushing for change. It was apparent that pausing gives space for clarity, to comprehend what your thoughts about the actions you have taken are actually and to allow solutions to come to you through your faith in your experiences, rather than striving to the point of an uncomfortable and unrewarding strain.

Lunch was provided and it was absolutely delicious!  And that is all I have to say about that. If you like your food fresh, clean, locally sourced farm-to-table food then take a look at their website – www.farmrj.com

Images: Fehinti Balogun in the Can I Live performance and at The Pause Field Lab Q&A.

I was leading the poetry and creative writing part of the day. I started with a simple embodiment exercise to encourage participants to ground themselves in the present. I asked them who they were without their job titles, without their qualifications and job status. I went so far as to ask them who are they without their friendship or family roles. This can be a tough exercise because people identify themselves with who they know, their bloodline and what they own. I asked them to put that all down and just be a human being in the moment releasing the gravitas of their roles and titles. I’d call this ‘extreme pause’, maybe? Because you are asked to go back to knowing that you are made of flesh, that belongs to the earth and that you are this ‘animal’ first.

My co-facilitator was Eileen Gbagbo. I met Eileen on an Apples and Snakes ambitious and environmentally conscious music and spoken word show Cece’s Speakeasy, upon which I was the artistic director.  The show’s aims were to highlight the impact of climate change on sensitive plants such as coffee and chocolate and use music, poetry, visuals and movement as a tool to raise awareness. As an emerging artist, I want to continue to work with Eileen’s maturity in her awareness and thinking processes around eco-themes. 

Our hour on this Pause Day was to inspire the participants to actively search for alternative narratives to the mainstream narrative of a climate apocalypse.

We started by introducing an expansive eco meaning of the adage ‘what if…?’ 

I shared an extract of a poem by Clauine Rankin – 

What if over tea, what if on our walks, what if

in the long yawn of the fog, what if in the long middle

of the wait, what if in the passage, in the what if

that carries us each day into seasons, what if

in the renewed resilience, what if in the endlessness,

what if in a lifetime of conversations, what if

in the clarity of consciousness, what if nothing changes?

Participants were then introduced to the free-flow poem entitled ‘what if’ and they were asked to imagine alternative narratives to what they had written on the flash cards at breakfast.

The results surprised them and poems did come out of the free-flow exercise.

What if I did not live in constant peril

How about I did not think, even just for a day, about everything

that is so obviously wrong with the world

Imagine if I just lived to be

What if there was currency for compassion

What would it look like?

They say that when things are free people actually take less

What if I did not live in constant peril

How about I did not think, even just for a day, about everything

that is so obviously right with the world

Imagine if I just lived to be

– T

Image: The team exploring play and imagination during The Pause Field Lab.

Stacy Makishi took us all to the next level of exploring The Pause. Not only did we explore some fundamental lessons in play and non-judgement, but the imagination muscle was given a gentle yet spirited workout.

We all surprised ourselves at how far we as individuals, with responsible jobs and burgeoning careers, can go into a state of play, an essential technique to process some of the hard stuff we have to deal with as adults in this moment in history.

By using random objects, we collectively and spontaneously improvised the story of an imaginary character and their made-up existence as a 21st Century imaginary friend.

As each person added a random item, the story evolved from sweet and humorous moments that warmed the heart to cameo moments that were tense and uncertain. Pretty much like life. And we did all of this with NO WORDS! We story-told as a collective with our bodies and the transmission of our intention.

Overall, The Pause was more than just about reflection. It was a reclaiming of head and heart space to really view ourselves as authors of the new existence we want to see, which includes empathy for the human who is more than what we can produce or consume.

And to end with Stacy’s storytelling exercise, we were able to bring completely uncensored and humane exploration to the creative space to pause in a way that felt like a gap in our usually packed diaries which is was filled with…. 

This blog post was created in partnership with Team London Bridge

About Zena Edwards

After graduating from Middlesex University and studying storytelling and performance at The London International School for Performing Arts,  Zena has been a professional writer/performance poet, curator and  creative project developer.

​She is known as a renowned award winning UK based poet of Afr-Carib-British heritage, however
she is also a polyglot, at home with collaborating with musicians, choreographers, and visual artists.
The list of acclaimed artists she has worked with include Theaster Gates, Ackroyd and Harvey and Akram Khan.

“Understanding comes in different forms, and poems are not riddles.” – Bohdan Piasecki

We build poems out of bits of language. Words, and groups of words, and ways in which words interact. We each amass a different set of these bits, and even the ones we ostensibly share we imbue with different meanings. Right? You might know the word tramway, for example, but unless you grew up where I did, you probably see a different tram to me (nr 18, boxy, red and yellow, turning from Puławska into Woronicza; the one I took home from school). 

To me, some of the most interesting poems are the ones constructed out of the bits only the individual poet has collected. Or the ones which use familiar bits in ways nobody else knows. People have told me before that everything has been written about already, and each time I say of course, of course, but not by you! Not using your words, not using them your way. Not built out of your bits.

Maybe I should use the term ‘bits’ less. To me, it means element, fragment, building blocks. I think it can also be a little rude? But that’s not how I use it; I’ve never said to mean anything other than part, subdivision, or small piece. So, never mind. Bits it is.

My bits come from three different languages: Polish, my family’s language, the one with which I grew up; French, the language of my education (a long story); and English, the language I chose, the one in which I live. In my daily life all of these are mixed up. We like to talk of first languages or mother tongues, but my experience – and, I have been assured, that of many migrants like me, and those who live in societies that use more than one language – is different. The languages aren’t separate. They are one set of words, one big bag of bits.  

What do trees do in the wind in English? They rustle. What does the radio do when the signal is bad? Does it crackle, maybe plays static. What’s the word for the noise made by a distant crowd? Or by a wave that hits the shore? In Polish, there is one word for all of these: szum. The tree, the sea, the people, the radio, they all szum. I know this, and it makes me want to write a poem in English that brings all these sounds together. I don’t even have to explain why. In the poem, the language made the association for me and now I can use it. It makes it easier for me to say a crowd is crashing, a radio rustling, or to talk about the static of the trees. 

Polish is the second most spoken language in the UK, but it’s still only 1.1% of the population. I can safely assume that if some of my poem is in Polish, most of the people who read or hear it will not understand. This gives me a way of removing meaning but still being able to include things which are recognisably ‘language’. I can use it to bring attention to the music of the words; to invite people to be active in my poem, to make their own meaning; to make something opaque, resistant, or different for different people.

In English you kill two birds with one stone. In Polish you cook two roasts on one fire. In French you also use a stone to strike twice, but French doesn’t name the target. 

When  Kaveh Akbar writes¹ 

I don’t remember how to say home
in my first language, or lonely, or light.

I remember only
delam barat tang shodeh, I miss you,

and shab bekheir, goodnight.

I feel like I am remembering his Persian with him. I share the loss of something I never had. I keep going back to these definitions as the phrases return in the poem. 

When Romalyn Ante writes²,

and later, in the same poem:

I can’t read the script. I have no access to this word – which is also the title of the poem. I read it differently to someone who knows Babayin, the ancient Tagalog script. And yet the poem stands out to me. I feel affected by it. I feel sad and thrilled. Understanding comes in different forms, and poems are not riddles.

When I said I’d try to write about multilingual writing, I quickly realised I’d fallen into a trap. It’s not multilingual writing I’m interested in. It’s the language that comes from a specific human being. Something different, something theirs. I can speak for myself: I never sit down to write a multilingual poem. I just try use the bits that work best for each poem.

In anglophone societies, this has a long and difficult history. Promoters and publishers sometimes assume audiences and readers will feel excluded by what they don’t understand. English sometimes feel like an impermeable monolith. But another language is an addition, not a substitution. We all end up richer: we get a poem, and we go home with new bits.

See? One fire. Two roasts.

***

Endnotes:
1. The poem cited is Do You Speak Persian, from Calling a Wolf a Wolf
2. The poem cited is , from Antiemetic for Homesickness

About Bohdan Piasecki

Bohdan Piasecki is a poet from Poland based in Birmingham. A committed performer, he has taken his poems from the upstairs room in an Eastbourne pub to the main stage of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from underground Tokyo clubs to tramways in Paris, from a bookshop in Beijing to an airfield in Germany, from niche podcasts to BBC Radio. In the UK, he regularly features at the country’s most exciting spoken word nights, festivals, and readings. He enjoys the creative chaos of big field festivals just as much as the composed concentration of literary events. 

Bohdan founded the first poetry slam in Poland before moving to the UK to get a doctorate in translation studies. He has worked as Director of Education on the Spoken Word in Education MA course at Goldsmiths University, and was the Midlands Producer for Apples and Snakes between 2010 and 2017. He is Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. He also works as Creative Producer, and sits on the board of the Poetry Translation Centre.

Website: bohdanpiasecki.com | Instagram: @wordrain | Twitter: @beveryquiet

Photo credit: Colin Potsig

This blog is part of our Behind The Words series. This project is aimed at highlighting poets of all backgrounds, journeys, style and personalities up and down the country. We want to remove the stereotype that poets only come in one form; typically white, well educated and middle class. You don’t need to be a certain way or have a specific background to be a poet.

I have AHDH and I love poetry and drawing. My mind bounces all over the place when I create which is a joy for stringing together wild ideas, but my mind hardly ever stops and when I’m listening to poets perform sometimes my head gets so full of bees that I can’t focus at all on what someone’s saying. Sometimes it feels like they’re speaking another language and nothing they say can penetrate my head.

A few years ago I realised if I draw while I listen, it tames my frantic mind and lets the poets’ words reach me. What started as a coping mechanism has blossomed into a beautiful extension of my poetry world and my place in this bustling UK spoken word scene.

I’ve loved writing poetry since my teenage years in the ’90s and, during the most artistically inspired times in my life, I’ve often slipped into the habit of writing a poem a day. This includes when studying at Drama School (2004) when touring a rock opera of Hamlet around the north of Italy (2008) and when I studied physical theatre in Paris (2012).

All of my adult life I’ve worked as an actor, animating and writing poetry in my spare time. I never shared anything I wrote and had no idea that the spoken word scene even existed.

Then, in 2015, I wrote 2 poems I was really proud of: ‘Jedi on the Metro’, and ‘Cous Cous’. I was shocked to discover my home town of Swindon had not only a gorgeous poetry community but also a great poetry festival every year too. Here are some Swindon Poetry Festival sketches from that time. You can see these here: [1] [2].

 

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I jumped in feet first, and quickly took to sketching poets as I listened, challenging myself to capture a poet’s essence in the 3 minutes it took them to share their truths with the crowd.

As time went by I got more and more adventurous and eventually treated myself to an iPad Mini. I started animating poets in Flipaclip and Procreate as well, the aim still the same, to work fast, doodling and animating in a just a few minutes to capture the essence of the poet and their words.

 

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I’d love to see more poets exploring animation in their work, and a lot of people don’t realise how easy it is to start. Anyone with a smartphone and a finger can do it, with all sorts of free and cheap apps available. FlipaClip, folioscope, Procreate and Rough Animator are my favourites. I also recommend getting a stylus. They’re super cheap and you can even make one with a cotton bud and some tin foil (just like this via YouTube).

Something that always troubles me is that I know that if I draw then it will look like I’m not paying attention. I want to give the performer my full energy and encouragement, but if I don’t draw and instead just pretend to pay attention, I’ll look like a great audience member but I often won’t have a clue what they’ve said. I try to sit at the back for this reason.

 

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As well as acting in other people’s shows, I also produce and tour my own one-person theatre productions. In the past 6 years, poetry, animation and video projection have become some of my favourite things to play with onstage. My work was developing wonderfully. But in 2020 calamity happened. Lockdown; Covid. All theatres closed. Tours cancelled. No more work for who knows how long.

When arts organisations started desperately asking “does anyone have any digital skills?!” my hand shot straight up.

Suddenly there were whole new avenues of art-making opening themselves up to me. I took a 10-week online course in motion design with the School Of Motion and threw myself into all manner of animation, illustration and poetry commissions.

I made a stop motion poetry film about being trans, performed a 15 minute spoken word set interacting with hand drawn animations, and made the world’s first fully animated poetry slam, complete with hand-drawn audience and guest judges.

My favourite project so far is a poetry video called Duvet Days that I made for Kat Lyons’ play Dry Season which explores early onset menopause. The poem explores anxiety, a subject I’m also very familiar with, and, as well as being a delight to create, it also got accepted at the prestigious Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin.

Despite how much I’ve made I still feel like I’m at the dawn of my journey to figuring out how I want moving images and my writing to flow together. In early 2022, I finished a big tour of Too Pretty To Punch, my one-person show about trans solidarity, a show I’ve been touring since 2017. I decided to take a break from touring my own work while I create new things.

My current projects include writing a satirical young adult novel about a trans teenager who struggles through the apocalypse, an online animated sketch comedy series satirising the debates around trans issues, as well as slowly formulating ideas for my next touring spoken word show.

I’ve been running more and more workshops and mentoring sessions to help people add animation to their poetry and theatre productions and I look forward to seeing the fruits of these new styles of poetic expression. This feels like a time full of change and creative possibilities and I’m excited for what the future may bring, both for myself and for our community as a whole.

Edalia Day

Edalia is a transgender spoken word artist, animator and theatremaker based in Norwich. Trained at Lecoq and Alra, her spoken word is full of energy and theatrical flair and her theatre combines comedy, live music and interactive projection mapping.

After 10 years as an actor, she started writing and producing her own work in 2014 with In The Surface Of A Bubble, about a world of dreams and until 2022 she toured Super Hamlet 64, a one-person show about videogames and Shakespeare and Too Pretty To Punch, about celebrating trans an non-binary people.

Since lockdown started she trained as an animator and motion designer with the School Of Motion and has produced several successful projects combining Animation and Poetry, working with the Young Vic, HOME, Harrogate Theatre, Theatre Royal Norwich and Lost in Translation Circus.

Projects in development include: an animated online comedy series about trans people, a book about a trans girl’s diaries during the apocalypse, and a new show combining spoken word and a trans barbershop quartet.

Connect with Edalia

Website: www.edaliaday.co.uk | Shows and books are available online at www.gumroad.com/edaliaday
Instagram: @edaliaday
Twitter : @edaliaday

Photo Credit: Colin Potsig

This blog entry is part of Behind The Words – our project to highlight all walks of life in the spoken word and poetry scene. There is no one way to be a poet. There is no right way to be a poet.

A momentous year for us as we turned 40 on 2nd October 2022.  Wahoooo!!!

It’s amazing! What was started by a small collective of poets Mandy Williams, Pete Murry and Jane Addison in a room at the Adam’s Arms, on Saturday 2nd October 1982 is still here, going strong, 40 years later – still producing events, supporting poets and engaging people with poetry. We feel proud that we’ve helped poetry and spoken word grow into the thriving scene it is today. 

At our core, from the beginning has been poets. A belief and practice which still rings true today and which is at the heart of our programming and activity.

We only exist because of the poets we have the privilege to support and nurture. And over the past year, we have worked with fantastic artists.

Given how 2022 started, we are delighted that live events have made a comeback! After a two-year Covid hiatus, we started the year with the ever popular Jawdance returning to Rich Mix in February for its regular monthly slot. March saw the annual Hit the Ode x UniSlam special and subsequently, we went on to deliver events in partnership with Canongate Publishers in London and Birmingham, and with Bloomsbury Poetry at The Last Word Festival. It was great to be back at Roundhouse! Summer was festival season, with gigs at Wilderness and Shambala (including the temptations of a gong bath!).

Our Libraries Out Loud programme blossomed. We delivered SPINE LITE festival across 16 London Library Services, Telling Tales, a Saturday morning club for 7 – 11 year olds, was delivered in more libraries than ever before, and gave children the opportunity to really develop their creative writing. In the summer Library Takeover, with Brent Libraries, led by Kat Francois was a great success with young people learning skills in creative producing as they staged their own event.

We took PLOT17, our hip-hop eco-block party (which tours in a converted horsebox van called IVY) to playgrounds across Lewisham, performing to over 1500 children aged 7 – 11.  IVY also travelled to an adventure playground as part of Lewisham Borough of Culture, as well as to Potters Field for Family Dayz Festival. The ‘Solitary Bee’ song is still buzzing in our heads!  PLOT17 will be on the road again next year.

In October, we were commissioned by Lewisham Borough of Culture to take SPIN, our poetry gig and workshop for kids, to Lewisham libraries. SPIN saw Jan Blake, Adam Kammerling, Simon Mole and Kenny Baraka transform in ‘eco-word-warriors’ to perform the 45 min shows with Laurie Bolger delivering the workshops.

We relaunched our Book A Poet scheme which takes poets into schools and communities, often delivering a first-time experience with a professional poet to the participants.

Our Keats Shelley project ‘Content Cottage’ which will culminate in Spring 2023, saw us visiting a number of secondary schools and includes a teacher’s education pack and digital resource for use inside and out of the classroom.

Supporting and developing artists across the country is at the heart of what we do.

In 2022, we delivered a wide range of artist development programmes including:

• Words First – the talent development programme for new poets in partnership with BBC 1Xtra and Contains Strong Language Festival 
• Writing Room – an intensive programme for aspiring writers from across the country which ends with a residential week at Arvon. You’ll spot the poets from this, on our socials, as part of our ’12 Days of Writing Room’.
• Jerwood Arts/Poetry in Performance Year 2 programme which supported 6 artists (within the first ten years of their practice) to challenge their creative practice
• Artists Retreats, a new programme, which brought poets together to spend a day recharging themselves with workshops focused on the crossover between wellness and creative writing.
• Red Sky Sessions, our open access development programme for aspiring writers aged 18 to infinity. This highly popular programme goes out twice a year in March/April and Sept/Oct.

One of our core ambitions is to ‘Go Digital’ – and a small positive to emerge from the pandemic was people becoming more comfortable online helping to accelerate our progress in becoming more digital! We’ve been able to offer our events and workshops online, and we now reach more artists, audiences and participants across the country than ever before.

As part of this ambition, we are delighted to be back with our partners at Elstree Screen Arts filming for our Blackbox series, as well as starting production for Series 3 of Apples and Snakes: The Podcast, which will be out early 2023.

You can catch all this on our website pages READ/WATCH/LISTEN. Blackbox has its own channel on YouTube (@applesandsnakes) and Apples and Snakes: The Podcast is available to listen to on your usual listening platforms (Apple, Spotify etc.)

Our 40th year started with a fantastic special edition of BBC’s The Verb, which was filmed at the Contains Strong Language Festival. Take a listen!

In 2023 as we continue to celebrate our 40th year, we will be working on a couple of big celebratory projects. Future Voices will commission 40 poets from across the country to create short pieces which will shared digitally.

WORDCUP2023 will work with teams of young people across the country to develop confidence, creative writing and community. This programme is an opportunity that is now, sadly, so rare to come across.

We’re running a JustGiving campaign to help support this, so, if you’re able to donate the price of a coffee or more, that would be awesome!  

Look out for our #ThisIsAPoet campaign which often draws on our fabulous archive: Spoken Word Archive

The Apples and Snakes team have shown, yet again, how much they care about the work that we do and supporting the artists we work with. This year we’ve continued to work with Zena Edwards who is helping us push forward with an exciting online community platform and which we’ll say more about next year!  As well as Helen Seymour who’s working with us as Creative Access Consultant, looking at disability awareness and access across our programmes.  

Thanks to all our funders, especially Arts Council England –  we are delighted to remain part of the National Portfolio, our partner organisations whose support enables us to do everything we do, and our board who give up their time voluntarily to support the organisation.  Special thanks to Chris Elwell, who has been our brilliant & supportive chair, who stood down at the December board meeting after 9 years of leadership and wise counsel. Our new Chair will be announced in the new year.

And finally, extra thanks and love to all the Apples and Snakes team for being awesome!

Lisa 

X

“i hate having to share trauma with white people to be taken seriously. as a writer but also just as a person. like, is that the only way whiteness recognises me as a person? through pain?” – Chen Chen

The very first spoken word poem I ever wrote was on my experience of a lifetime of receiving racism and silent bystanders. It remains the only poem I’ve written on racism and I don’t think I can ever do another.

I performed it for about a year at different open mic events until I had to stop. It was liberating to write and perform the piece at first, but it quickly became deeply draining and very questionable as to who was now benefiting from this piece. The poem required me to pull rage and awful memories from behind the mental wall (which was blocking them out for self-preservation reasons) and serve them as entertainment for audiences.

After doing a poetry slam, I retired the piece as I realised having my trauma consumed and scored by non-East and South-East Asian (ESEA) people is actually quite horrific.

Since then, I’ve been performing at open mic nights before becoming a featured act at events, working with major organisations as an artist and so on. I’ve written about plants, space, quantum theory, love and other stories. In the meantime, I kept a lookout for other ESEA poets, hoping it wasn’t just me out here. In my first four years of poetry, I managed to find about three others.

It’s as though we don’t exist.

In 2020, COVID-19 related racism against ESEA people soared across the world. Reported hate crime tripled in the UK in the first three months and online hate speech shot up by 900%.

The media constantly used ESEA faces when reporting on the virus, stoking further racism. Over 30,000 people signed a petition demanding media to “stop depicting East & South East Asians in Coronavirus related media”.

However media outlets denied doing this and responded to activists with “’Your statement about using solely East and South East Asians in articles relating to COVID-19 in The Guardian is, frankly, wrong.”

Across the world, ESEA people were being assaulted or murdered.
And suddenly, poets like me were visible.

Corporations approached asking us to write about racism or traumas and issues we face. Corporations hover around minority groups like vultures. They’ll want stories or spoken word pieces for their ads, campaigns, shows etc but provide little to no support or pay.

ESEA people are held as the model minority – hardworking, quiet and servile. Corporations expect you to behave as such. They imagine you’ll tell the full depth of your experiences to fit their brief exactly. They won’t pay you much, if anything. You will just be so happy for the opportunity, for the publicity and for having your voices heard on such a big platform.

They will arrange for the poem to be performed for audiences that do not look like you. To retell is to relive and so, with spotlights in your eyes on a stage, you will relive your trauma and make your fellow community relive theirs when they see it. The corporation and their intended audience will hear your stories – it will be shocking, heart wrenching, they’ll say “I can’t believe that happened to you”! It will be cathartic for them, they get to quietly pat themselves on the back for having never done something like that to people like you.

And they get to walk away. There will be no well-being systems set up for you, no support, no check in. If you’re lucky there will be a thank you email. We are expected to put our experiences back in a box until we can mine it again for another piece of work.

We are fed into systems that Other us and fails to see us as people. We are expected to serve our trauma as entertainment. We don’t exist most of the time, and when we do we can only speak on racism, as though we come into being to be attacked or farmed for our stories.

They want to hear stories about racism and how hard it is without doing anything to change their own systems.

We are placed as either writing about race or deliberately choosing not to. We’re pressured to monetise our trauma, as though this is our only value and the only thing we can be the expert on.

This is why community (that’s intersectional with cross-community allyship at the centre) is so important. When we’re together, we make a safe place to be an individual without being picked out to represent an entire race. We’re stronger together, able to back each other up, share knowledge and we make it harder for corporations to exploit or undercut anyone.

I’ve founded BESEA Poets, a collective for British-based ESEA poets, and we currently stand at 25 members across the country. BESEA poets have always been here and been extremely good at our craft, but are rarely platformed.

We’ll write about what we want, when we want. We’ll only write about trauma if it helps us, and if we actually want to. We’re made up of multifaceted and layered individuals who don’t represent an entire race or ethnicity. If companies want to work with us, they’ll need to trust us and not infantilise us by demanding we tell our stories in a certain way.

We have always existed here, and we will continue to do so.

About Christy Ku

Christy is a Multimedia Creative. Poet. Actor. Workshop Facilitator. Photographer. Anti-Racism Consultant:

“I work across many different art forms, specialising in poetry, acting and performance, and workshop facilitation.

I’ve made poetry films, spoken word tracks and theatre shows with organisations such as the BBC, Sky Arts, and the Barbican. I founded BESEA Poets, a platform for British based East and South-East Asian poets.

Currently, I’m working on my debut poetry pamphlet. I was once rejected from having a poem baked onto 200 loaves of bread.

Alumn: Barbican Young Poets, National Youth Theatre, New Earth Actors Academy.”

Connect with Christy

Website: christyku.co.uk

Social media: @kukadoodles

Join her newsletter:  christyku.substack.com
BESEA Poets: www.instagram.com/beseapoets  or drop me a line on hello@christyku.co.uk!

*Source for opening quote: www.instagram.com/chenchenwrites

Image credit: Colin Potsig.

Back to Behind the Words Project Page.

I’d love it if people could read the word ‘disabled,’ notice what feelings come up and then challenge them. Try it now. Disabled poet.

I think I did have a sense that the village hall tea-party, in the middle of Norfolk, on a sunny afternoon, might not be ‘my audience’ but then, I didn’t want to judge. Maybe they’ll be bang into it, who am I to say? But when it got to the bit where I was pretending to be the grim reaper rapping about death while gyrating around their tables, stacked with cucumber sandwiches, I knew for sure that they weren’t for me. Or rather, I was not for them.

Earlier on in my show, where I was pretending to be a badger, a woman got up and left. Maybe she’s going to the loo, I thought. She did not come back.

I can never be certain why this happened. Clearly, the organisers had got the wrong end of the stick about what my show ‘To Helen Back’ was like. I should have known that when I arrived, as outside the hall , they had put up a big banner saying ‘TO HELEN AND BACK’.

Ah. Right. Sure…

I mean, it’s actually ‘TO HELEN BACK’, so when you say it, it sounds like TO HELL AND – never mind.

I had spent ages working on my blurb for them.

Spoken word/comedy/performance art (does performance art sound too pretentious?). When I put ‘performance’ I meant the fun kind. The kind where people put swimming caps on and spend eight minutes pretending to be a worm. If there isn’t a word for that, then there should be. I’d even performed a small section of the show for them – although, not the grim reaper bit, admittedly. So when they booked me, I had thought they had a good sense of the type of show I did. But somehow that got translated to a sweet little show ideal for an afternoon tea party (with cucumber sandwiches!)

After I performed, I overheard two women say it ‘really wasn’t what they were expecting’. And, while I actually quite like that kind of feedback, there is something I will never really know about the feedback I receive. In this instance, I wonder whether somewhere along the line, the fact that the show was marketed as being about ‘sickness, health and what it means to recover’ – along with myself being a disabled poet and the show being described as ‘funny’ – that this all conflated to an understanding in the organisers head, that my show was, somehow rather ‘charming’.

The sweet little disabled girl talks about hospitals with a smile. Awwwh. Maybe that’ll get in the paper.

That’s the trouble, you know. If I’m not trying to dodge the old-fashioned, incorrect assumptions about what ‘poet’ means (i.e. Shakespearean infused haiku about a leaf in wind) then I’m trying to dodge what people think ‘disabled’ means.

And I don’t want to not say I’m disabled, because there’s nothing wrong with being disabled, and sometimes, I want to talk about things like being in hospital, there’s not enough visibility given to disabled people, so hiding it doesn’t feel like the right fit for me.

(I should definitely say, for record, it’s an individual choice. No one should have to talk about their health if they don’t want to).

But the world is still an ableist place, and assumptions are rife. So if I manage to dodge words like ‘charming’, I can quite easily get hit with ‘a bit depressing’. ‘Urgh no, not disability. I can’t read a poetry book about that. Not another metaphor about being unable to climb the stairs. I can’t cope. I LOVE stairs. It’s just going to bum me out.’

And this is my least favourite assumption, because I feel so ‘othered’ by it.

So ‘what a sad little life, Jane’d.’ There might be some sad parts, but what book doesn’t have sad parts? There are also funny parts and uplifting parts and weird parts’ – urgh, see? I’m getting tired now.

Having to explain I’m just as much a human as anyone else. YAWN. I’m sick of it, to be honest.

I’d love it if people could read the word ‘disabled,’ and notice what feelings come up/they have…and then challenge them.

Try it now.

Disabled poet. Sad girl writes from behind the window looking at friends playing in the snow.

There, we see it now. It’s out. I’m not having a go at Wilfred Owen, but/for? giving school kids a lot of poems about sad disabled soldiers, but this hasn’t exactly been great for the disability movement. Maybe the curriculum could balance it out with some disabled joy?

But anyway – I’m getting distracted. The first reaction – the snow one – is over.

So now, maybe you can realise that actually, you? have no idea what a disabled poet might want to say. Maybe you can realise that actually, you haven’t really heard from a disabled poet before. Or maybe you have, but guess what? We’re not all the same!

Remember: Human. Different experiences, different lives, different perspectives. And yet – and here’s my favourite thing about poems – you can read a line from someone from a completely different life, living in a completely different body, and BOOM, it hits you dead centre.

Here comes that swell of the heart, beyond all otherness, and you think, ‘God, yeah, I get it. That is exactly how I feel.’

About Helen

Helen is a word-artist-spoken-poet-human performance-person. Her work mainly focuses on health, hospitals + surrealism. She is known for mixing off-beat comedy with dark subject matters. Helen is a disabled artist who is proud to be contributing to a more diverse arts sector.

Her debut poetry collection, The Underlook was published by the Poetry Business in January 2022. You can order it here

Helen has been commissioned by Apples and Snakes a number of times, writing new poetry and performing to new audiences across the UK. Helen won Gold in the Creative Futures Literacy Awards and was longlisted in the Outspoken Poetry Awards 2018. She has also facilitated poetry and writing workshops a wide range of ages and abilities.

If she wasn’t doing this, Helen thinks she’d be a pharmacist from the past or a grave digger, because she’s quite obsessed with death but in a charming way. She’s made also made some short films and been on a few podcasts.

In other news, she’s a sucker for Art History, the Curzon Film Podcast started in her kitchen, and she was once awarded a badge for swimming 100 metres.

Helen is currently working with Apples and Snakes as a Creative Access Consultant. She’s helping the team here do some work in moving forward with equality, inclusion and diversity. She has been delivering workshops and 1-1s with artists to help them build ‘Access Riders’ so that artists can highlight any specific access requirements they need to venues and other organisations upfront. Her work has been praised highly by participants and we look forward to working with her for some months to come!

Connect with Helen

Website: helenseymour.com
Twitter: @lehenner
Instagram: @whathelens

I’ve been practising as a poet and workshop for over 10 years now, and alongside this work, I have also been commissioned to write for a variety of different projects. Each with its own trials, tribulations, and triumphs! This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a series of things that have stood out in my memory of my commission writing experience. I hope in some way in works out to be helpful.

THE COMMISSION 

A commissioned piece is when you have been offered or applied to an organisation to write a  piece that communicates the message of that organisation. The work usually takes form as a one-off performance, or a piece for social media or a website. For example, a commissioned piece can range from writing for a blog, exhibition, podcast, or a performance at a conference or festival. They usually pay quite well, some give you residency like opportunities, and time to carry out research with access to materials, space and experts.

FINDING A COMMISSION 

The world of commissioning can sometimes be a minefield, and it can be difficult to know where to start. It is easy to feel others are just lucky enough to have opportunities thrown their way, and somehow all the commissions are not reaching you. But I have found that commissioned work is something you have to look for. And I belong to several mailing lists, including the Apples and  Snakes basket, where opportunities to apply for such roles are listed.

I also look through the Arts Council England jobs list to see if anything that interests me is on offer. Twitter is also a useful tool, and I  follow a few people who post opportunities that will lead to a writing commission. Very rarely have I been lucky enough to have been contacted directly and offered a commission, or another poet has suggested me for a project.

CHOOSING A COMMISSION

It is one thing writing when you are inspired, or what tickles your fancy, and actually writing to commission. This is why for me I always try to choose topics that a) I know a little thing or two about, b) it interests me, even if it is not, it’s something I have not explored before. c) be clear on what it is that I want to communicate in the piece, and check that this aligns with what the  commissioning organisation want from the work.

KNOWING THE OUTCOMES OF THE COMMISSION 

It is important to really read through the project information, and pick the brains of the commissioner. And believe me, it is possible to get it very wrong! In the past, I have embarrassingly gotten the brief very wrong. I ended up writing a rant about something completely not what the commissioning team wanted (sometimes, we as writers have something niggling away at us, and we cannot help but write about it).

Commissions don’t work like this. I am used to writing from my own free will and it is possible to forget that commissions can be quiet restrictive. That is where you need to get imaginative. How can you bring your voice and interests in to overlap on what the brief outline is. It is really important to get a clear idea on what thoughts/ feelings the organization wants and similarly what the readers/ audience to walk away with.

THE SMALL PRINT  

When taking on a commission, make sure you have a clear timeframe and outline of how much this project will take to deliver. Commissions offer bigger fees than performance alone, which can be very attractive. However, I have worked on a project where the commissioning team kept adding extra meetings and site visits to the timeframe of the project. This meant that the initial sum I was offered was not a realistic amount for how much work was required from me as a poet on the project.

Once I started to add the extra meetings, and travel/ accommodation costs, the commission was not as well paid as I had initially budgeted. It is really important to have a clear breakdown of what the commission is worth, how much for the research and written piece, if there is a performance fee, and how many meetings or workshops you may be required to deliver. Have this in writing via a contract before you commit to doing the work.

ARTISTIC LICENSE & ETHICS 

Know from the get-go, who owns the publishing rights to the end piece. Does it belong to you to perform again, or does the final piece belong solely to the organisation?

Know also what you as a writer want to gain from the commission. Does this topic tie in with your work? Is the final piece something you can use in a future collection or submit to a  competition? Does the commission give you access to resources that you would otherwise not have had access to? Are you able to work with other exciting artists, and push your artistic practice in a way that you have not been able to in the past? Are you able to sell merchandise at the final event? Are you happy to be affiliated with this organisation and do their ethics line up with your sense of fairness and justice? These are a lot of questions to ask youself, but they are very imporant questions to ask. Take time thinking these through and getting that information upfront.

And finally good luck and have fun with any commissions you may have lined up in the future. Remember this can be a fun space where you can do something different to your usual work!

About Shagufta K Iqbal

Founder of The YoniVerse Poetry Collective and Kiota Bristol, Shagufta K Iqbal longlisted for the Jerwood Compton poetry fellowship, is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, workshop facilitator and Tedx Speaker.

Described by gal-dem as a poet whose work ‘leaves you validated but aching – her narratives are important, heart-wrenching and relatable.’ Her poetry collection ‘Jam Is For Girls, Girls Get Jam’ (one of Burning Eye Books bestselling collections) has been recommended by Nikesh Shukla as ‘a social political masterclass.’

​Her poetry film ‘Borders’ has won several awards, and has been screened across international film festivals, including London Short Film Festival, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Athena Film Festival.

She sits on the board for Cape Farewell (An Art Response to Climate Injustice), and is currently writing her second poetry collection and a debut novel.”

Connect with Shagufta

Website: ko-fi.com/shaguftakiqbal | www.shaguftakiqbal.com
Producer ‘Borders‘

Photo credit: Colin Potsig
This blog is part of Behind The Words.