Ekphrasis for All! (See Max Literacy update below)
(No, projectification is not a word – but I just needed to finish the ‘-ification’ thing, OK?)
CWTP MSc Dissertation
A quick update on a few things – most notably that: I’ve passed my Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP) MSc Dissertation!
The dissertation focused on ways in which CWTP might be used in a museum or gallery setting, so there was a huge amount to think about – particularly materiality, working with objects, decolonising museum spaces (or trying to!), poetry as a research methodology and transcriptions re-presented as poetry…
It was, admittedly (or perhaps rightly), the most challenging (OK: difficult) piece of writing I’ve yet had to do! It really stretched my abilities and thinking through the rigour of writing in the Social Science thesis format.
Very little had been written before specifically focusing on CWTP or writing for wellbeing in museums and galleries, which meant it was both a useful exercise (I hope) and there was a lot of bringing things together.
I’m looking forward to graduating with my coursemates in July. The course was through Metanoia Institute and accredited through Middlesex University – and you can find out more about it here.
Publications
It’s been a good year so far for publications, I’m delighted to have had poems in:
the gorgeously handstitched Coast to Coast to Coast;
Nine Arches Press’ excellent journal Under the Radar;
the beautifully-produced (and pleasingly anonymously-selected!) Butcher’s Dog.
There are long swathes of time when nothing finds a home anywhere – so it’s really pleasing when some of one’s work (and really often not the poems you’re expecting) find homes in such wonderful company and in such carefully- and lovingly-produced journals.
Nobody’s in poetry for the money! For me, though, that’s part of what makes it such a wonderful ecology, to me. Yes, it’s difficult to make a living, but hell yes – people who thrive in poetry do so through their passion*.
There’s potential progress on my first single-authored pamphlet, but I’ll update on this once it’s more definite!
*Also: asking to be paid; being boundaried; working hard; being nice & being efficient.
Max Literacy
I was very lucky to work with Bristol Museum and Art Gallery – with whom I’ve worked a great deal in the last few years – and Compass Point School on a Max Literacy Award project from January – March this year.
It was my pleasure to work with the year two and five classes in the school, who were immense fun. Writing creatively about art and objects is such a brilliant, nourishing thing to do – I hope they’ll feel confident and excited to go into more museums and galleries, equipped with pen(cil) and paper, and explore with their senses and their imaginations.
There’s an article about the project here and we’re in the process of developing and finalising the resources to go on their website. Watch this space.
National Writing Day
There’s a little video I made for the National Writing Day website, on the topic of Why I Write – which you can watch, here.
NB: this video was made while in the middle of CWTP dissertation writing, so excuse the bags under the eyes and the slightly lost look! That said, the MSc has made my processes so much clearer to me – so a good way of bringing this update full circle.
Keep reading, writing and exploring – I will be.