Poetry : Performance : Workshops : Education Packs : Commissons
Matrix Moves - Fixed Focus
We spotted him on a Bayswater corner,
stood stop still with a fixed focus………
……….Whilst you, process
along a strip of midday sun.
………enough for us to question
your mental health.
London February 2015
Poetry Workshops in Schools or for Home Education Groups
Valise Noire's ‘Cargo’ project as part of a National Heritage Lottery Funded piece celebrating milenia of cargo passing through the Great Quay of Poole, Dorset.
‘Our Summer’ Action Poetry
Bourne Valley Youth Centre, 2016
‘Action Poetry’ written during open youth club sessions.
We wrote it out big, sometimes in the quiet peace that the Club provides for young people 10-14 on Thursday nights. At other times we concentrated while all hell let loose around us and things were 'kicking off'!
The poems were always performed back to the writer and even recorded to take home. they wide eyed responses were constant:
"How did you do that?!"
"You did that", I replied.
Heritage Education Packs
Cargo - Valise Noire Storytelling Theatre Company 2017
The Ark and Dove - Valise Noire Storytelling Theatre Company 2019
Home Education - Arts Award Workshop, Dorset
Colin added colour and depth to our Arts Award sessions through music and poetry.
He took our theme of L S Lowry and transported us all 'up north' to the factory streets, the noise of the looms and the world of Lowry’s matchstick men.
The children were enthralled, wrote music and poetry together and created a musical soundscape.
The session was beautifully thought out and completely accessible to the wide range of abilities we had in the room.
A fabulous journey we will all remember.
Jenny Gordon, Arts Advisor for Arts Award.
School Heritage Workshops
Sixth Form, Secondary, Junior, First, Pre-School
Isle of Wight Literary Festival 2019 - ‘The Ark and Dove’ - Three week workshops with three Year 5 groups
Wimborne History Festival 2018 - Suffragettes with Michele O’Brien, Queen Elizabeth School, Dorset
Language Therapy sessions 2019 Twinoaks Pre-School, Poole
Commissions
Teresa Grimaldi: Time and Tide Animation 2020 - Poem for Hullabaloo Arts and Science Festival, IOW
I’ve worked on various projects with the renowned, puppetmaker and visual artist Teresa Grimaldi since 2011. She was crafting a new animation for the Hullabaloo Festival during the Lockdown of 2020 and as I watched the rushes via Facetime a natural rhythm with the accompanying words emerged. The film depicts the unique nature of the Isle of Wight’s biosphere, how it has been explored and written about over the centuries and threatened by the mooring of an ever increasing number of huge cruiseliners to save mooring fees at the port of Southampton.
The film was shown as part of the Hullabaloo Festival programme. Following on, song lyrics developed to the stirring folk shanty ‘The Smuggler’ performed by the Sherringham Shantymen. We’re still working on the edit as my version has a lot of verses to go with Teresa’s feast of images.