Trust brings Hope to the UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival
This weekend, the Trust’s research and development team are sharing the story of their inspiring poetry project, The Hope Collective, at the UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival hosted by the BBC.
As part of the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival’s 10th anniversary celebrations, the team are presenting two sessions on The Hope Collective at MediaCity in Salford.
The Hope Collective began as a collaboration between the Trust and the National Poetry Centre, bringing together parents and poets to explore the grief that follows the loss of a child or loved one.
Since then, the project has received almost 650 poems from across 22 countries and published three anthologies. At the event, the team will be sharing copies of the third anthology, ‘Silence, Trace, Shadow, Longing’.
On Friday 25 September, associate director of research and development Luise Marino will be joining poet Karen McCarthy Woolf for a workshop exploring how poetry can be used to support connection and hope. As part of the session, poems from The Hope Collective will be read, giving participants the opportunity to hear the powerful words and experiences captured within the collection.
On Saturday 26 September, Luise will be leading a workshop around the Collective, where participants will have the opportunity to get creative and write their own poetry.
Luise said: “We’re delighted to be part of this special 10th anniversary celebration and to have the opportunity to share The Hope Collective, its work and the incredible power of poetry to give voice to experiences that can sometimes feel impossible to put into words.”
