Writing a Migration

refugee smuggling stencil sm

Writing a Migration

Wednesday 16th March, 7-9pm
The Gallery, Storey Institute, Lancaster LA1 1TH.

Using sculptures and prints featured in Catriona Stamp‘s Where Are We Going? exhibition as departure points, this writing workshop will explore what migration means to us and how we’re connected to current and historical migrations. We will explore themes of home, alienation and change.

This is a session for play, investigation, art and imagery, open to all, however experienced you are as a writer and whatever form you usually write in.

Full £10
Concessions £5

To book use the contact form below

Where Are We Going?
Paper sculpture | prints | artistsbooks | film by Catriona Stamp
Featuring new work on human migration alongside a retrospective
The Gallery, Storey Institute, Lancaster LA1 1TH
Fri 4 March – Tues 22 March. Noon – 6pm Monday – Fridays.

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Remix the Poet

Remix the Poet: What song offers poetry
A Poetry and Music workshop with Hymas & Lewis

Saturday 14 November, 10-4pm
The Olive Room, Gregson Centre, Lancaster, LA1 3PY

Turn a poem into a song and back into a poem. Edit with your ears and see how the process impacts your imagining of its potential. In this playful, exploratory workshop we will be using the song form to transform the way you think about writing.

Using a variety of activities, writing and thinking time, discussions, silence and time outdoors, poet Sarah Hymas & musician Steve Lewis will share their practice as collaborators and turn the volume up on your own processes.

We have found that setting poetry to music encourages the light in. Once the words are sung, resonances spark, new phrases are found, and different ways of speaking them emerge. The poem matures. This workshop will offer you alternative ways of editing and give you a fresh confidence in your writing and how you share it.

Attending the workshop includes the option to air the results of the day at the following week’s Spotlight Club in Lancaster.

All writers, of any genre and experience level, are welcome.

More info about Hymas&Lewis

Cost
Early Birds £60 available until 30th September
Full Price or post 30th September £80.

There are limited places available for this workshop, so we need full payment in advance

If you have any questions, just ask…
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Natural Burials

DSCN0754 Any ceremony that accompanies a natural burial is as flexible as your imagination, takes into consideration the environment and has minimum impact upon it.

I’ve been honoured to work with people on planning their funerals and found natural burials offer the chance to explore what living and dying means in a spiritually fulfilling way.

The Dalton Woodlands Burial Ground, near Burton-in-Kendal Cumbria UK, is a 30 acre mature woodland, a quiet and restful place to be buried. Francis Mason-Hornby, the registrar there, is a straight talking, compassionate man, open-minded and accommodating to what people want.

Natural burials are an environmentally sustainable alternative to cremations and churchyard burials. If you respect the natural world, a woodland burial is the chance to take a positive step at the end of your life.

To discuss that rite of passage, in advance, offers a chance to step consciously towards death, prepare how you want your life to be celebrated, how to mark your departure for those left behind. It can be a point of coming to terms with the end of an illness or old-age.

It can also alleviate the stress for others who have to plan and prepare at the disorientating time of grief.

My eight years of coaching gives me the skills and depth of experience to ensure we will plan the ceremony you want. My interest lies in you expressing your life and anticipation of death. How you want to do this and who you want involved is the focus of our meetings. I would hope to meet any family or friends you would want to participate to ensure the smoothest experience for us all.

I can write anything for the ceremony, help you to write something, read it or merely orchestrate the ceremony while others read and speak.

Writing commissions

Over the years I have written to many commissions, not just Tailormade Poems. These came from residencies, festivals and projects. Some are detailed below.

For the Walking on Wyre project I was asked to write a piece to reflect the river, its history and people. You can read about the project here

I wrote on Ursa Minor for Heavenly Bodies, an anthology of  the 88 constellations published by Beautiful Dragons Press.

A sequence of four poems about the changing light at the mouth of the Lune  was commissioned for Lancaster Lights  by Litfest in 2013.

2003-2005 I was the inaugural poet in residence for Calderdale Libraries in West Yorkshire. Responsible for establishing reading groups and promoting poetry reading throughout the library service, the residency culminated in a collaborative publication, with artists John Lyons and Hafsah Naib, called Reading is Believing.

Ursa Minor*

It is the animals who look directly at you.
Human eyes, wild with lust and betrayal, avert,
lost to the darkness. Greased by night, flat earth
foreheads disguise the thinking that repeats –
repeats beyond logic. Greed loves generosity,
feeding on it, turning it to frailty, foolhardiness.
Even at a distance there is violation:
a witness cannot unknow, unsee what happened.
We become party to the crime by our presence.
Crying does not absolve anyone, merely turns
them to a transitory curiosity, lost in the blur
of passing time and this deepening cold.

 

 
This is a poem commissioned for an anthology

*There are several mythological stories behind Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. In Greek myth, Zeus raped the virgin Callisto. When his wife, Hera, found out she changed Callisto into a bear. Zeus put the bear in the sky along with the Little Bear, which is Callisto’s son, Arcas.

Writer

writer, poet, collaborator
Writer

My writing has appeared in print, multimedia exhibits, poem films, dance videos, lyrics, pyrotechnical installations, on stage and as an improvised opera. I am a Hawthornden Fellow.

Collaborator

I collaborate with a musician, other writers and artists, perform my work, facilitate writing workshops, mentor other writers, and oversee writing projects. I have also participated in a residency with the Delfina Studio Trust in Spain.

Book Publications

the hispering (BlackSunflowers Press, 2021)
melt (Waterloo Press, 2020)
Host (Waterloo Press, 2010)
Multiple art booklets  combine poetry, illustration and form to present my newer work in beautiful and intimate ways. My artist’s booklet Lune (2013) was runner-up in the Sabotage Awards (2013)  and featured in The Guardian Books Blog as an excellent example of the form. 

Audio Walks

Since 2014 I have made multiple site-specific audio walks, commissioned by the National Oceanography Centre, Machester Literature Festival, We Do walking festival, Lancaster Arts and Aberdeen Arts. See more here 

You can hear me read on my Soundcloud stream, and watch me performing.

I am available for readings, workshops, residencies and commissions, and would bring energy, authenticity and a sprinkle of humour to any event. I’m happy to discuss my fees without obligation on your part.

“I thought your performance of your exquisite and elevated
poems was masterly, magnificent.”

“Listening to you and your poems is like listening to music.”
“You are a fantastic performance poet.”

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I write, publish and perform work about our ecology, specifically our relationship with the ocean: through poems, artistbooks and immersive walks. 

I run workshops to deepen my practice and share with others the value and intrinsic role of creativity in our lives. 

My work as a poet and facilitator begins where I am based on Morecambe Bay, near Lancaster, UK, and spreads regionally, nationally and internationally.

My blog, below, reveals more about my creative practice and influences.

echo sounding

RSS Echo Soundings

View the full blog on Blogger

 

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