Advent calendar day 5

Today I'm sharing Carol Ann Duffy reading Mrs Midas. Another personal favourite of mine :)

Advent calendar day 4

Yesterday I had the pleasure of running a writing session for residents of a sheltered housing scheme, and we spent some time talking about pets and sharing those memories. So today I'm sharing Mary Oliver reading a poem from her collection 'Dog Songs'.

Advent calendar day 3

It's my pleasure to share this little gem from the wonderful Patricia Debney.

Passionflower

blue corona blooms
deeply lobed green leaves sometimes
rush up this bare fence



Patricia's latest collection can be found here.

Advent calendar day 2

And here's another great interpretation of one of my favourite poems, I hope you enjoy it :)

Happy Advent Calendar Day

Welcome to my poetry advent calendar, each day between now and Christmas I'll share something poetry related with you :)

Through the first window is a video created from one of my favourite poems. Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Earlier in the year, in my role at the council, I ran two creative writing projects for people living with, and affected by, dementia. One was called 'Cabinet of Curiosities' and included 8 weekly sessions at the Beaney in Canterbury for people living with dementia, their carers and some fabulous volunteers. We used the museum's exhibits as inspiration for our writing, sometimes wandering out into the galleries and sometimes handling objects in the room. This project was also a finalist in the Kent's Dementia Friendly Awards.

The other was called 'Day in the Life' and was held monthly at Blean Village Hall. This project was for people who had been affected by dementia in any way, maybe their husband or wife had a diagnosis, maybe it was their nan or grandad, or anyone. We were also supported by some great volunteers from the Word Out poets.

A selection of the work created during these projects was collated and a book produced, which was launched last Wednesday at the Beaney, where some of the participants came along and read aloud. The work they shared is moving, and funny, honest and heartfelt. One participant said to me 'I never dreamt I could write poetry' - this book goes to show that, given the chance, anyone can write, and everyone has something to say.

Hop Tales at Cranmer House

Last Saturday was the first of five creative writing sessions at Cranmer House in Canterbury. I’d met a few of the residents before, but it’s always exciting going into somewhere to meet a new group of people.

The residents had previously been working towards building a scarecrow for the Scarecrow trail at the Westgate Gardens, and they had created one on the theme of ‘Hopping Mad’ about the hop picking that happened locally. I decided it would be fun to link on to this for my first session with them.

We read poems about Hop Picking and also one written from a scarecrow’s point of view. The group spent some time imagining what it would be like to be a scarecrow and writing their own version of this poem. One writer told us how he thought his scarecrow would want to go for a pint!

This segued nicely into us reading a wonderful poem called ‘Get Drunk’ by Charles Baudelaire – after all, no workshop with the theme of ‘Hop Tales’ would be complete without talking about beer. After hearing about getting drunk, we wrote a group poem called ‘When I was naughty’ which had residents telling tales about punching brothers, stealing apples and cheating at exams!

All in all it was a great fun session full of recitations from Mary, wonderful poetry reading from Joan, fantastic cake baked by Fay’s mum and tea. What more could we ask for? I’m looking forward to the next one on 29 October on the theme of ‘Home’.