Young People

Carlisle

Apples and Snakes worked with a group of young people from The Youth Panel at Tullie House and Rabbit Rabbit (Rabbit) from New Writing Cumbria in Carlisle, led by Jenny Lindsay.

Jenny Lindsay is a writer of spoken word poetry and theatre, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She was the BBC Fringe Slam Champion (2012), is the co-producer of live lit series ‘Rally & Broad’ and a member of the Shift/ Collective.

During the six writing sessions, Jenny created with the young people characters based on their impressions of the poets in the exhibition. They then wrote creative responses in the voice of those characters, before sketching out and experimenting with the stories they wanted to tell about themselves when they performed at the celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes, at Tullie House.

Below are some poems developed by the young people during the creative writing sessions.

Watch Leon and Astrud performing their poems on YouTube, as they could not be present the night of the performance.

Leon's performance (YouTube)

Astrud's performance (YouTube)

Apples and Snakes worked with a group of young people from the Dove Cottage Young Poets at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, led by Kim Moore.

Kim Moore’s first collection The Art of Falling was published by Seren in 2015. A poem from the book was short-listed for the Forward Prize for Poetry. Kim won a Northern Promise Award in 2014 and plays trumpet in a ten-piece soul band.

Kim worked with the Dove Cottage Young Poets over six weeks, a group of young writers that she had already been working with for the last two of years. She focused the work of the group through the theme of Identity, exploring what it means to young women today. This led the group to produce writing about feminism, casual sexism and patriarchy, as well as poems about politics and refugees. Most of the group had not had the chance to perform their work to an audience, so the Picture the Poet Live performance at Tullie House was a perfect opportunity.

Below are some poems developed by the young people during the creative writing sessions.



Sunderland

Apples and Snakes worked with a group of young people from Sunderland College in Sunderland, led by Sky Hawkins.

Sky Hawkins, also known as The Word Bird, has performed, headlined, and won a number of slams at numerous events across the North East and beyond over the last ten years. She has been facilitating and teaching creative writing programmes for diverse groups and audiences since 2010. Sky led creative writing sessions in response to the Picture the Poet exhibition over six weeks, exploring the theme of identity. She introduced the group to performance poetry through showing them performance poets on YouTube and inspired them to write their own poetry to perform on stage alongside established poets.

Below are some poems developed by the young people and which were performed as part of Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens' celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes.

Apples and Snakes worked with a group of young people from Sunderland Music Workshop Centre in Sunderland, led by Rowan McCabe.

Rowan McCabe is a performance poet from Newcastle, has performed on stages from the Edinburgh Fringe to the Bristol Poetry Festival and is a winner of the 2015 Great Northern Slam.

He led creative writing sessions in response to the Picture the Poet exhibition over six weeks, exploring the theme of identity. As the young people involved were budding musicians who used the Music Centre to develop these skills, Rowan exposed many of them to the world of performance poetry, showing the close link between performance poetry and music, looking at the poetic merit of song lyrics by bands such as The Stone Roses and The Cure, as well as the musical quality of poems by Benjamin Zephaniah and John Hegley. He encouraged them to let their work cross over into the different mediums, using existing lyrics to develop into poems.

Below are two poems developed by the young people, which were performed by Greg and Trinity as part of Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens' celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes.

Lincoln

Apples and Snakes worked with a group of young women from a school in Sleaford.

Performance poet Jess Green led creative writing sessions in response to the Picture the Poet exhibition over six weeks, exploring the theme of identity and using poetry to write about themselves. The young people used photographs, postcards, music and important objects to inspire their poems. They explored descriptive and creative writing techniques to help improving their writing skills over the weeks.

Below are some poems developed by the young people, some of which were performed by Tonicha as part of Usher Gallery’s celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes.

Preston

Apples and Snakes worked with a group of young people together with The Foyer, Preston's local charity which prove shelter, support and life skills to young people.

Poet Ali Gadema, poet, hip-hop theatre practitioner, led six group sessions in which the young people created their own poems linked to the Picture the Poet exhibition on the theme of ‘self identity’.

Below are some poems developed by young participants, one of which was performed as part of Harris Museum and Art Gallery’s celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes.

Sheffield

Apples and Snakes worked with two groups of young people, together with organisation ROUNDABOUT, poet Sai Murray and poet and short story writer Vicky Morris.

ROUNDABOUT is Sheffield's local youth housing charity, providing shelter, support and life skills to young people. Poet Sai Murray is one of the UK’s leading youth slam poet coaches. Vicky Morris has worked for a wide range of organisations as a writer, mentor and facilitator, including The Writing Squad and Off the Shelf Festival of Words. She works freelance in many creative and educational roles primarily with teenagers.

Sai Murray and Vicky Morris each led six group sessions in which the young people created their own poems linked to the Picture the Poet exhibition on the theme of ‘self identity’.

Below are some poems developed by young participants, some of which were performed as part of Graves Gallery’s celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes and Wordlife.


Young People - Norwich

Apples and Snakes together with the Writers’ Centre Norwich worked with a group of young people at an after school club at the Hewett School, Norwich. Poet Ross Sutherland led five group sessions in which the young people created their own poems linked to the Picture the Poet exhibition on the theme of ‘self identity’.

Watch a short video showing some of the young people reading their work during one of the workshop sessions.

Below are some poems developed by young participants that were performed as part of Fusion Gallery’s celebratory event, produced by Apples and Snakes.