Executive Summary

Aim:

To run a series of experimental workshops, taking poetry learning into innovation environments and building an awareness of technical understanding into interdisciplinary environments.

Objectives:

To host 10 workshops from approximately February 2011 to June 2011, open to all with an interest in poetry, but specifically focusing on interactions between creative writing MA students and other departments. Curriculum:

  1. AL Kennedy to run an outdoor workshop involving a falconer, on field observation.
  2. Peter Blegvad to run a workshop in collaboration with Engineering. Dean of Engineering has already offered a tour of facilities (wind tunnel; 3D ‘printer’; psychology lab for testing psychological impact of car doors, etc.) and a session promoting aspects of their work through creative writing.
  3. Can Sönmez to run a workshop on martial arts techniques in relation to written forms of language, and historical aspects of physical combat and writing, in a sports hall and involving sports club members.
  4. Nick Barker (Chemistry) to give tour of facilities involving Chemistry students discussing aspects of their research. Participants from both departments to discuss ways of communicating this research creatively.
  5. Field trip to Stowe Landscape Gardens in Buckinghamshire for up to two minibuses worth of students (32 participants including staff), open to participants of any of the previous workshops, to investigate landscape, architecture and poetry.
  6. Sharon Kivland of Sheffield Hallam University to talk on Visual Art and Writing.
  7. Professor Gary Watts (Law) to give a talk on Law and Literature – aspects of story within the legal system. Relates to a session given as part of Peter Blegvad’s CAPITAL Fellowship, but to include Law students this time.
  8. Emeritus Professor George Rowlands (Physics) to offer a lecture on fractals, with a tour of facilities, plus discussion on mapping fractal forms into language by George Ttoouli.
  9. Peter Larkin (English Subject Librarian) to run an ecopoetics session on campus grounds, on Mapping Natural Forms into Language. Funded by George Ttoouli’s WATE Award.
  10. Carol Watts & George Ttoouli to run workshops in a London church garden environment on New Pastoral Poetry. To be funded by George Ttoouli’s WATE Award. Results of the series will be published in pamphlet form.

To create an interchange of learning between creative writing MA students and students in Engineering, Chemistry, Physics and Law, as well as interactions involving outdoor sessions led by English Department and visiting staff.

To create a collaborative framework on new pastoral poetry, involving students and staff at the Birkbeck Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, London, led by Carol Watts and George Ttoouli