Poetry

Poetry Projects 2008 to date

Whilst working for Torbay Council Angie lead the formation of three Poetry for Pleasure Groups at Torbay Libraries. The first started in Brixham Library in 2008 with the idea of getting people together to share poetry aloud. The poetry could either written by themselves or someone else on the theme agreed for a monthly meeting.  Anyone could go along and just listen. Angie helped the group obtain a grant in 2010 which funded a poetry booklet, workshop and poetry walk around Brixham. The work on this project was recognised in the Museums, Libraries and Archives booklet called ‘Opening up Spaces’ at the time. Another grant for poetry workshops also followed. In subsequent years two further Poetry for Pleasure groups were started at Paignton and Torquay Libraries and continue to this day.

At Torbay Libraries Angie also led a small team which developed a poetry prize cup competition for teenagers. This brought external partners together to fund a cup, prizes, outreach workshops, banners and made arrangements for the prize to be awarded at the Torbay Poetry Festival.

In 2014 Angie was the lead facilitator on creating a Poetry for Pleasure group for her home town of Dawlish. Through a grant by Artswave Devon a series of meetings took place with ‘guest’ poets. An evening with Matt Harvey was also arranged in Dawlish Library in February 2015.

As part of the Dawlish Arts Festival 2015 Angie organised a poetry workshop, a poetry trail (including an audio version), a poetry and cake afternoon and a poetry on the beach event!! The poetry trail included over 50 venues and involved a competition where winners had their poems on display.

Angie has organised a poetry walk as part of the first Dawlish Walking Festival and led on working with Dawlish Arts Festival 2016 on poetry events. This included a poetry trail competition for 2016, a DIY poetry tent and poetry tree as well as organising a workshop. For the third year the Dawlish Poetry Trail and other events in Arts Festival week were organised and attracted poets both local and from wider afield! Angie lead a poetry walk in the Dawlish Walking Festival 2016 and 2017.