Happy National Poetry Day - 7th October 2021

During September, the theme for the University of Warwick’s year-long Resonate Festival for Coventry’s City of Culture year was Words and Voices. The Connecting Cultures GRP was responsible for organising the month’s events, and our first Words and Voices event was all about poetry, asking ‘Where does poetry take you?’, ‘How can a poem unlock your city’s past, present and future?’ and ‘How do you tell your stories through poetry?’. Here some of the contributors and partners who took part in that event tell us about what poetry means to them and how the event celebrated all forms of poetry.

Karen Simecek, Associate Professor, Philosophy

Poetry is a space for connection. In writing, reading, and listening to poetry we come into contact with others through our use of common language, that is, a language we draw on and borrow every day to commune with others. But it is not an ordinary use of language in poetry but language that has been crafted and nurtured to express not something too personal or private but something relatable. Poetry helps to bring us together through relationships of common experience and difference; through a simple speaking of an I and/to you.

It was this idea of poetry as community that formed the focal point of a discussion panel on the power of poetry to bring people together at the Slam in the City event as part of the Words and Voices Roadshow. My two guests, Coventry poets, Shahnaz Akhter and John Bernard not only seek to build connections with others by writing about shared experiences of injustice but seek to use poetry to empower others to have a voice and be heard in their local communities. As part of this discussion, we also saw an example of a multi-vocal, community poem, the poetry film ‘Underlines/Overheard’ by Imtiaz Dharker (commissioned by Poet in the City as part of their Between the Storeys project with Culture Mile). Through poetry we can learn to hear other voices and hear ourselves reflected in the commonness of language.

Nosa Charles-Novia, Undergraduate, Film & TV Studies

writing poetry; a labour of love/

William Wordsworth infamously stated that “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotions recollected in tranquillity”.

This quote, particularly the latter part of it, articulates what poetry means to me. Though this gush of emotion is often what comes across in the performance of poetry writing poetry is a process of recollection and refining ‘in tranquillity’.

For me, poetry used to mean spark and inspiration and passion, but nowadays, its come to mean patience and precision. It means mulling over the correct comma or adjective to use to express a very specific sentiment. It means revisiting spaces and scenes that only exist in some deep part of you with a pen, paper, and a chair. It means ensuring you do justice to the story you’ve been given, making sure you don’t dilute it with convenient or dishonest adaptations. For me, writing poetry is about observing and scribing truth.

Writing ‘Coloured’ and ‘Mother tongue’, which I performed at the Words and Voices event in September, gave me this new definition of poetry. In the 5-6 minutes where the audience followed me on one tale of circle and sisterhood and another of fracture and finding, I was reminded me of the months of frustration at both poem’s insufficient ending. I had come up with many endings for the poems, some suitable ones, but non felt true in expressing the sentiment of the story. I had to labour for the truth to show itself, and eventually, almost a year after I got the original inspiration, it did.

The ‘powerful feelings’ that drive poetry are only understood to an audience when the poet’s mind, in a less emotive state, has sat with these feelings, interviewed them and given them a voice through their own. Yes, poetry is emotion and passion and spontaneous overflow. But poetry also means patience. For me, poetry is recollecting truth ‘in tranquillity’.

 

Julia Negus, Producer, Theatre Absolute

Everyone attending the Words & Voices event received a limited edition ‘Poetry Pocket’, produced by our partners Theatre Absolute, full of goodies to encourage everyone to give poetry writing a go. Producer at Theatre Absolute, Julia Negus, explains, “Through this work we were able to bring together writing exercises and images from six writers and photographers plus notebooks and pencils all in a unique 'Poetry Pocket' bag, the contents of which would then act as a stimulus to the recipient of a Poetry Pocket. It has been wonderful to hear from people about their writing and poetry. Demystifying the world of poetry, and being inclusive is key to supporting new poets, poetry and stories for the future! "

We also invited people to submit the poems they created through the Poetry Pocket to the Words and Voices poetry writing competition, to be awarded later in the autumn.

Sujana Crawford, Poet, Playwright, Researcher

Poetry has been my way of self-expression for as long as I can remember. As I have grown and changed, however, it has taken on deeper meaning. Poetry I share with an audience is more than just a stream of consciousness now. It is an active way of sharing how I view the world, it is the way I make sense of all the contradictions I find within myself and in others. I also read poems by other writers to better understand what it means to be living in the current times. The Resonate festival highlighted a few of the biggest challenges that we face - that of climate change and environmental destruction. To me, personally, it also reinforced some hope - the fact that we are taking time to write and read and talk about these issues means that we can, are willing to listen and hopefully, make necessary changes. Poetry evokes in us feelings that we often choose to overlook - there is no looking the way when inside a poem, and that is why I keep returning to it.

 

Jonathan Skinner, Reader, English and Comparative Literary Studies

It was an honour to be asked to be a part of the Words and Voices Roadshow alongside such a diverse and talented range of poets: while I was proud of my students who kicked the evening's reading off with their vital, innovative, passionate, serious and sometimes funny poetry, to hear ecopoetics -- poetry as a work of living more deliberately and creatively in response to our household Earth in crisis -- coursing through the work of so many Coventry poets, as the River Sherbourne flows, sometimes hidden, sometimes in plain sight, through the city's centre, was truly inspiring. I appreciate the sensitivity, boldness, creativity and political grit of Coventry's poets, who bring the fight for social and ecological justice into their language in such unexpected ways: who said poetry makes nothing happen? I look forward, with these poets, to the sounds of Coventry's future.

You can find out more about the Words & Voices events in the Connecting Cultures blogpost here.

For more upcoming Resonate Festival events, check out our programme at resonatefestival.co.uk