Poetry: Performance, Engagement and the Enrichment of Cultural Life
Submitting Institution
Newcastle UniversityUnit of Assessment
English Language and LiteratureSummary Impact Type
CulturalResearch Subject Area(s)
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies
Summary of the impact
W.N. Herbert, Jackie Kay and Sean O'Brien have played central roles in
the recent resurgence of
interest in poetry as live performance and cultural event, and have been
instrumental in a growing
recognition of its power as a means of social engagement. Their research
and writing have
provided a foundation for the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts
(NCLA), a University Research
Centre directed by Linda Anderson. Through the NCLA they have been able
(i) to build audiences
for literature generally, and poetry in particular, at live events, online
and in communities; (ii) to
engage key groups, including young and older people, and to study creative
writing's benefits for
learning and wellbeing; (iii) to enhance the public understanding of
poetry, by disseminating
research, encouraging debate, and providing resources and new
opportunities to encounter poetry.
Underpinning research
The key research outputs, responsible for establishing Newcastle as what
the poet Ruth Padel has
called `the national centre for poetry', are the collections by Herbert,
Kay and O'Brien published
since they were appointed at Newcastle in 2002, 2004 and 2006
respectively. A small selection is
listed below (1, 2, 3). Besides its intrinsic power to engage
audiences and enrich lives, this work
constitutes a sustained engagement with some of the themes that lie behind
the programme of the
NCLA, including issues of place (especially the North East of England),
community, identity and of
the significance of poets and poetry. O'Brien's The Drowned Book (1),
for instance, winner of
Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, `immerses itself in ... a baleful
industrial-northern landscape'
(Guardian, 8 Sept. 2007). Kay's collected poems (2) address
the ways in which people `incarnate... place ... whether through ethnicity
or in our behaviour and language' (Guardian, 10 Nov. 2007).
And Herbert's Bad Shaman Blues (3), shortlisted for the
T.S. Eliot Prize, investigates the role of the
poet in modern society.
These same themes have been taken up in their critical work. O'Brien's Journey
to the Interior (4),
for example, examines the work of contemporary poets in re-imagining ideas
of England. Herbert's
translation work has enriched our culture by expanding the range of poetry
to which we are
exposed to include poetry from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Russia, Somalia and
elsewhere. His edition of
contemporary Chinese verse (5), giving English-speakers access for
the first time to a
comprehensive selection of recent poetry from the new global superpower,
has been called
`indispensable reading for anyone with an interest in the future not just
of China, but of poetry.' His
textbook Writing Poetry (6) takes a unique approach, with
dialogues closing each chapter in which
he discusses his ideas with prominent poets (Douglas Dunn, Jo Shapcott,
Kathleen Jamie, etc.) so
that readers understand how differently poets can approach their work. The
book is used widely: at
the Open University, elsewhere in HE, and outside the sector (e.g. via
iTunes).
All this work (along with that conducted by other poets in the NCLA:
Anderson, Colette Bryce,
Cynthia Fuller, Ahren Warner) emphasises the social and public functions
of poetry. As such, it has
brought many opportunities to take poetry into the world, through lectures
and festivals, the media
and public commissions. It has also been crucial as a foundation for the
work of the NCLA with its
mission to enhance public engagement with poetry. A series of grants has
supported this mission.
The `Even Better Writers' project (G1), for instance, was
developed in partnership with New Writing
North and Newcastle City Council to bring writers and educationalists
together to devise effective
and sustainable models of creative writing teaching in schools. `Ageing
Creatively' (G2), a
collaboration with Newcastle's Institute for Ageing and Health, was
another NCLA research project,
funded by the Medical Research Council to evaluate the uses of creative
practice in promoting
wellbeing in later life.
References to the research
(1) O'Brien, S. (2007) The Drowned Book. London: Picador.
Available on request.
(2) Kay, J. (2007) Darling: New and Selected Poems.
Tarset: Bloodaxe. Available on request.
(3) Herbert, W.N. (2006) Bad Shaman Blues. Tarset:
Bloodaxe. Available on request.
(4) O'Brien, S. (2012) Journey to the Interior: Ideas of
England in Contemporary Poetry. Tarset:
Bloodaxe. REF2 output: 177536
(5) Herbert, W.N. & Lian, Y. (2012) Jade Ladder:
Contemporary Chinese Poetry. Tarset: Bloodaxe.
REF2 output: 170082.
(6) Herbert, W.N. (2012) Writing Poetry. London:
Routledge. Available on request.
G1. Anderson, L. (2008) `Even Better Writers' (£36k). Esmee
Fairbairn Foundation grant, ref. 08-3715
G2. Anderson, L. et al (2011). `Ageing Creatively: a pilot
study to explore the relation of creative arts
interventions to wellbeing in later life' (£250k). Medical Research
Council grant, ref. G1001901.
Details of the impact
Building new audiences
Our research has, in and of itself, gathered significant new audiences for
poetry. More generally,
the NCLA has been at the forefront of the recent national step-change in
how poetry is
disseminated, particularly online and through public events (a `poetry
renaissance' as it has often
been called in the media) (IMP1). Herbert, Kay and O'Brien have
collectively given over 150 poetry
readings in the census period to audiences that, in aggregate, number more
than 15,000. These
have included appearances at the major literary festivals as well as
events at the NCLA, including
a joint performance in 2012 drawing an audience of 300. Their standing as
poets has attracted an
extremely impressive roster of visiting poets to the NCLA, and Herbert,
Kay and O'Brien frequently
host events, introducing new and well-known poets to regional audiences
and engaging in public
questions and debate. O'Brien, for instance, introduced Seamus Heaney to
an audience of 600 in
the Newcastle Civic Centre (2009) and Paul Muldoon to an audience of 250
(2010). Kay
introduced Carol Ann Duffy to an audience of 500 (2009). Based on his own
expertise in the
translation and editing of international poetry (5), Herbert has
brought many non-Anglophone poets
to Newcastle, often in association with the British Council. He has
introduced the Somali poet
Gaarriye (2008), the Chinese poet Yang Lian (2010), and Burmese poets
Eaindra and Thitsar Ni to
audiences of around 100 (2012). The 45 poetry events in the period from
NCLA's foundation in
2009 to July 2013 drew an aggregated audience of 3860, an average of 86.
This is twice the
national average for such events, and by some distance the largest
audiences for poetry ever seen
in the North East. Respondents to a structured questionnaire about the
value of NCLA events
(April 2013) stressed the importance of live performance and of
interaction through question and
debate. `Enjoying poetry is so often a private and personal experience
that it is nice to encounter it
in a public space and share the experience with others', wrote one
respondent. Another attendee
used three words to describe her experience: `Passion, creativity,
inclusion' (IMP2). Audio/video
recording hugely extends the audiences for all these events. The
recordings are freely available in
the NCLA digital archive (www.nclacommunity.org).
From Sept. 2011, when the archive was
established, to July 2013, the archive has had 18,338 visits from 6,543
unique visitors, with a
further 32,300 visits through its vimeo site.
Poetry and public life
Through commissioned projects, Herbert, Kay and O'Brien have brought
poetry into new venues
and situations in civic society, extending its reach and demonstrating its
capacity to voice national
aspirations and concerns. In 2012 alone, for instance, O'Brien's poem
`Dignified' was part of a
poetry installation in the Olympic Park, was read by Dame Tanni
Grey-Thompson at the Olympic
Poetry event (11 June 2012), and was poem of the day in The Times
(31 July 2012); Herbert wrote
and recorded a poem for The Guardian, `The Blazing Grater', about
the Olympic torch passing
through Tyneside (15 June 2012); O'Brien's poem `Another Country',
addressing a history of North-South
relations in modern England, was written for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee
and read on BBC
R4's Today programme (24 April 2012); and Kay, having been
commissioned by Sheffield United
FC and Off the Shelf Literature Festival, wrote a poem, `Here's My Pitch',
and read it out before
kick-off at Bramall Lane stadium (29 October 2012). Based on research into
Arthur Wharton, the
first professional black footballer to play in the Football League, the
poem was part of the anti-racist
Kick It Out campaign. It received extensive press coverage.
Herbert's `poetry plan' for the 750-home West Park estate in Darlington
has continued to be
deployed (2002-). Commissioned by the developer, Herbert has written
verses installed throughout
the 121-acre site: they are inscribed on buildings, adorn the new
hospital, provide the motto for the
new school and the name for the new pub. Herbert named the streets, and
the couplets inscribed
on each street sign make up a complete poem. The Director of Bussey &
Armstrong, the
developers, hopes that `forever walking past its rhyming couplet[s]' `a
child brought up in West Park
will grow up with a strong sense of who and where they are, nourished by
the storylines on which
the development has been founded' (IMP3). The National Association
for Literature Development
has called Westpark `an outstanding example of the way text and public art
can imbue what is in
this case a totally new community with a sense of its heritage' (IMP4).
Our poets have also been active in taking poetry into public life via the
media. On BBC radio they
have reached audiences of up to 800,000 with documentaries (e.g. O'Brien
on Tennyson, and
Peter Porter, and Herbert on Edwin Morgan and international poetry
festivals) and with original
verse dramas (e.g. O'Brien's Take Me to the Bridge for BBC R3).
The NCLA commissioned
Herbert, Kay and O'Brien to write a poem, `Mutatis Mutandis', for BBC R3's
Freethinking Festival
(2011).
Enhancing and embedding the public understanding of poetry
The NCLA, and Herbert, Kay and O'Brien in particular, work hard not only
to take poetry to wide
audiences but to extend the range and improve the quality of debate
surrounding it. NCLA staff
have delivered important public lectures, such as Anderson's Royal Society
of Literature Lecture
(2011) and O'Brien's Sebald Lecture (2012). And the NCLA has hosted
landmark lectures by major
poets, including C. K. Williams' Poetry Society Lecture and Paul Muldoon's
Elizabeth Bishop
Centenary lectures (2011). Central to this commitment to extend debate has
been the partnership
with Bloodaxe Books, `the country's leading publisher of contemporary
poetry'(IMP1) including the
annual Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures. During the census period they
have been given by
O'Brien, Jane Hirschfield, George Szirtes, Fiona Sampson, Desmond Graham
and Ruth Padel, all
introduced by O'Brien or Herbert. As Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley says, the
series `features poets
speaking about the craft and practice of poetry to audiences drawn from
both the city and the
university, with these public lectures later published in book form by
Bloodaxe, giving readers
everywhere the opportunity to discover what leading poets have to say
about their subject' (IMP5).
These books have sold over 3000 copies in total. The acquisition in 2013
of the Bloodaxe Archive
is part of the NCLA's strategy to curate and open up resources to
facilitate public understanding of
poetry (see also the NCLA digital archive, above). An AHRC grant (£40k) to
explore and publicise
the archive has already brought it into the public sphere, producing a
film shown to 300 at the
Festival of the North-East (July 2013), running a public roundtable event
with Herbert, O'Brien,
Anderson and Astley, and setting up a website presenting the archive
through poems, photographs
and films (http://bloodaxearchive.nclacommunity.org).
Public understanding of the diversity of contemporary poetry is enhanced
by Herbert's research,
editorial and translation work on international poets. Besides his edition
of modern Chinese poetry
(5), Herbert has translated Somali poets Gaarriye (2008) and
Hadraawi (2013) into English for the
first time (leading to `The Bards of Somalia', BBC R4, 28 Aug. 2010 and
`Poetry in Translation',
BBC R4, 16 May 2013). He has been equally active in taking British poetry
to new, non-English
speaking audiences overseas, for instance at the Novi Sad Festival in
Serbia (2008), workshops
and performances in Pondicherry, Chennai, Pune and Kerala (2010-11) and
Yangahou and
Nanjing (with O'Brien, 2013), and at festivals in Turkey and Somalia
(2013).
Developing new writers
Alongside their work with established poets, NCLA staff have used their
research expertise to
nurture new generations of poets. O'Brien, as a pre-eminent national poet,
has been adjudicator
for the Arts Council Escalator scheme to aid emergent poets (2010) and
tutor for the BBC/Arts
Council `New Voices' scheme, (2011). He and Herbert have judged many
national poetry
competitions for young people during the period, including the NCLA's own.
389 young people
entered a competition on the theme of `belonging', part of the 2012
Festival of Belonging in
Newcastle. Shortlisted poems were incorporated into a poetry trail across
Newcastle-Gateshead.
The `Even Better Writers' research project (G1), led by Anderson
and delivered with New Writing
North during 2009-11, sought to create, investigate and evaluate effective
and sustainable
strategies for improving teachers' ability to teach creative writing. It
was notably successful.
According to the project's formal evaluation, all of the 25 teachers (from
8 schools) who took part in
the research `felt that their confidence in tackling creative writing had
been increased' after the
sessions (led by Herbert and NCLA colleagues) and `that they had developed
new skills and
strategies for improving creative writing.' The 1080 pupils who were
direct participants also
benefitted. According to the data submitted by the schools, 82% exceeded
their anticipated grade,
14% met it, and only 4% fell below it. Interviewed pupils felt that the
sessions `raised confidence
and self esteem.' In particular, the project overcame resistance to
poetry, among both teachers
and pupils. Teachers talked about having `more ideas for poetry' and
having fewer misgivings
about teaching it. Pupils commented that `poetry fills your head with
ideas' and that `poetry would
help with all your writing really ... I think if you can get your head
around poetry you can probably
do all sorts of writing better' (IMP6). The project has gone on to
inspire other similar interventions.
An NCLA project supported by the Clore Duffield Foundation, called `Young
Voices: Using Digital
Resources to Develop Reading and Writing', is now assessing the use of
digital resources to
develop children's creative writing. And beyond Newcastle, a 2010 Arts
Council England report
cited `Even Better Writers' as evidence that `inspiration does not have to
be at the expense of
standards' (IMP7). In 2010, following the Motion Report, the
charity Creativity Culture and
Education was granted £200k to develop, deliver and evaluate three new
poetry projects (`Well
Versed') to `build on the learning gained from ... Even Better Writers
programme' (IMP8). Another
recommendation of the report was the £100k development by The Poetry
Society of a Young
Poets Network, a resource to which NCLA writers have contributed (e.g.
Anderson's entry on
Bishop). The NCLA has also created the website `Young Voices' as an
interactive resource where
work by young people is showcased and supported with tips, discussion and
competitions
(http://youngvoices.nclacommunity.org/).
Poetry and Wellbeing
The NCLA is concerned with researching the ways in which poetry can be
used to improve
wellbeing. One strand of this is a course for healthcare professionals on
the use of poetry in health
settings. The NCLA has run the course throughout the census period
reaching 78 participants
whose feedback has highlighted the inspiration they were able `to bring
back to their practice as
health professionals'. A second strand has been the MRC-funded `Ageing
Creatively' project,
exploring the health and social benefits to older people of engaging in
creative arts activity,
including writing poetry (G2). Through analysis of the processes
as well as the outcomes of the
creative interventions, and using a medical methodology, the project has
laid a foundation for
accurate assessment of the effects on participants' wellbeing of engaging
in creative writing. The
findings can now be analysed with a view to deciding the efficacy of GPs
prescribing creative
activities. What post-project interviews demonstrate is that later-life
participants benefitted: `I would
say that the workshops definitely enhanced my well-being,' said one, `for
the reasons ... like,
belonging to a group where you feel safe, where you connect with people in
a meaningful way. I
think those things must have a positive impact on your self-esteem, on
your confidence'. Another
said simply `I'm sure creativity, and finding what is right for you as a
person is a key to well-being'
(IMP9).
Sources to corroborate the impact
IMP1 Felicity Spector, `Ted Hughes memorial marks poetic
evolution', Channel 4, 6 Dec. 2011.
http://www.channel4.com/news/ted-hughes-memorial-marks-uk-poetrys-evolution.
IMP2 Collected data from the NCLA questionnaire, April 2013.
IMP3 `Writing West Park: Writing at the Heart of the Community'.
Arts Council England, West
Park, New Writing North and others. No date.
IMP4 Sarah Butler, `A Place for Words — Literature Development and
Regeneration', National
Association for Literature Development. Online. No date.
IMP5 Neil Astley, editor of Bloodaxe Books. Testimonial letter. 29
October 2013.
IMP6 Caroline Redmond, `Even Better Writers. Final Evaluation
Report'. May 2010.
IMP7 Sue Horner, Magic Dust That Lasts. Writers in Schools —
Sustaining the Momentum. Arts
Council England Writers in Schools report, 2010.
IMP8 The Motion Report: Poetry and Young People. A report from
the Poetry and Young People
Project Review Group. Booktrust, 2010.
IMP9 Collected data from the Ageing Creatively Project feedback.
All sources can be provided on request.