Poetry Partnerships
led by Jean Atkin - Poet and Writer
Jean worked in a variety of community, care and cultural settings, and online, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with the project artists: Adrian Plant, Sal Tonge and MediaActive Projects. Jean used poetry, objects, archive film, and countryside walking to stimulate conversation and sharing of reflections, which were then captured and crafted into poems and songs. Jean worked with community groups, with groups of individuals and also had opportunity to work on a one-to-one basis with elders, which proved a powerful experience for the participants, for Jean and for the audiences of the works created.
During the pandemic, Jean delivered online sessions, using archive film as a stimulus to develop poetry and spoken word performances. Through Wem Town Hall she served as artist in residence on both the outdoor weekly market - see above Facebook posts - and on the local Meals on Wheels scheme (using the phone for the initial conversations with service users, then performing the poems created on their doorsteps, as part of the meal delivery service).
“Peter’s life has been eventful, as he pointed out. His poems reflect his experiences, told simply, but with the reflective distance of age we reasonably call wisdom. I sat with him, and the wonderful facilitator at his sheltered housing scheme, and made notes, page after page of unpunctuated scribbling, with my own peculiar short-forms. We drank tea and ate cake, and at intervals I read back to Peter what he had told me, and we amended where necessary. I find the shape and form of the poem emerging during this process, where my main aim is to capture a voice as truthfully as possible. Later, I work on the poems and finish editing them before returning them to the person whose stories they tell.
Peter talks with his hands, and has never learned to read and write. An email from the facilitator said: ‘Can I just say you have made Peter’s world with the few pages you did? He’s so happy, [he says] it’s ear pleasing and “good for the grandchildren”. He has been sharing the poems with his family and friends and has put them in a folder and is just so impressed, his words “Isn’t it gorgeous?”’
It was a pleasure and an honour to work with Peter, and hear these moving, extraordinary and historic human experiences” - Jean
Peter talks with his hands, and has never learned to read and write. An email from the facilitator said: ‘Can I just say you have made Peter’s world with the few pages you did? He’s so happy, [he says] it’s ear pleasing and “good for the grandchildren”. He has been sharing the poems with his family and friends and has put them in a folder and is just so impressed, his words “Isn’t it gorgeous?”’
It was a pleasure and an honour to work with Peter, and hear these moving, extraordinary and historic human experiences” - Jean
some photos from the project