New blog & website

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Eco-poetry at ONCA

 

Greetings this unpredictable spring. Just to let you know that kin'd & kin'd* are running a short series of Zoom events with ONCA: 

'field fairing - diverse perspectives on eco-poetry'

starting on 20th May with poet Merrie Joy Williams, for which another batch of tickets has now been released:

https://onca.org.uk/2021/04/29/eco-poetry-at-o-n-c-a/

The series will continue on 17th June with Jason Allen-Paisant.

kin'd & kin'd is a composite eco-poet made up of Kay Syrad & Clare Whistler 

THINK THING - an interview with kin'd & kin'd

 Greetings, dear people 

As some of you know, Clare Whistler and I run workshops and write as the composite eco-poet kin’d & kin’d. We were interviewed recently for a special MAGMA Poetry issue on collaboration; the shorter version of the interview appears in the magazine, and a fuller transcript has been made into a small online book Think Thing (edited by Alice Willitts) available to read at Elephant Press http://www.elephantpress.co.uk/

The online launch of the MAGMA issue is this Thursday, 19^th November https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/magma-78-collaborations-tickets-127703892781  and here is a link to the print version of the magazine: 

 https://magmapoetry.com/buy-magma/

Wishing you well -

connections while solituding - a Correspondence Course

Please also see my full website here

Greetings ---Alas, but inevitably, kin'd & kin'd have had to cancel our Knepp Wildland course, 'Connections' but we have replaced it with a correspondence course 'connections while solituding' - which has already sold out  - such is the need for connecting by all means possible at this extraordinary and uncertain time of Covid-19. We will be running new courses as soon as we can. Meanwhile, I like Donna Haraway's idea of 'having heart' rather than having hope (all our hearts beating), and Joanna Macy's suggestion that we don't have to vacillate between hope and hopelessness, but can instead consider the gifts of uncertainty, which include settling for the present moment, and enhancing our solidarity with all our relations - past as well as present, non-human as well as human. See Macy's talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzmjF1jE2K0

Image from work created during our eco-poetry course at Knepp Wildland in 2019

 

Eco-poetry course at Knepp Wildland

Please see also my website at http://kaysyrad.co.uk/index-old.php

Please join us for our second eco-poetry writing course at the pioneering and beautiful Knepp Wildland near Horsham, West Sussex.

This 6 week course will start on Saturday, 2nd May with a Walking Safari led by one of  Knepp’s expert ecologists, and will continue on Wednesday evenings, with exciting individual and collaborative writing exercises both inside and outside.

Since early 2018, Kay Syrad & Clare Whistler have led courses at ONCA arts centre in Brighton, Aldeburgh Poetry Festival and Sussex Wildlife Trust at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. Our eco-poetry series 'Changing Everything Carefully'* is based on an historical and international range of poetry and creative ideas about how we can reckon with the current eco-challenges that we face.
All welcome.

Knepp Wildland is a pioneering wilded estate owned by Charlie Burrell and Isabella Tree, who has written a beautiful and illuminating account of the long process of transforming their farmland in the award-winning book, WILDING. For more information about Knepp, see knepp.co.uk/home

The course starts at 9am on Saturday 2nd May, 2020 with a whole day event that will include an overview of the course, a walking safari, lunch, poetry, discussion and writing. We will then meet weekly in the early evening (6-9pm) from Weds 13th May for five weeks, finishing 10th June.

COST AND BOOKING
£190, to include the cost of the safari.Book with Eventbrite: bit.ly/2tK6Sup

TRAVEL
Knepp Wildland is about 20 minutes’ from Horsham Station, and 30 minutes from Brighton by car. We may be able to organise lifts from Horsham station.

CONTACT
For more information, please email kaysyrad@chrisdrury.co.uk

* e.e. cummings, from ‘Spring is like a perhaps hand’

in 100 Selected Poems, Grove Press, 1954

COMMENTS ABOUT OUR PREVIOUS COURSES:

‘I really appreciated the fun and playful approach you brought, the creativity and good humour […]

A ‘wonderfully inspiring and mind-opening course. I feel extremely fortunate to be part of it and it has given me something to truly look forward to and feel optimistic about each week’.

Please see also my website at http://kaysyrad.co.uk/index-old.php

Eco-poetry events 2020

Last year, my collaborator Clare Whistler and I ran a number of eco-poetry workshops, at ONCA environmental and social justice space and gallery, Brighton; at the now famous rewilded estate, Knepp Wildland in West Sussex; and at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival in Suffolk. We also had a residency at White House Farm, Great Glenham, Suffolk, where we made a study of the hedgerows.

Participants have written some fantastic wild poetry during our workshops, such that we have been compelled to produce anthologies of their work:  Poemish & Other Languages, Poemish of the Wildland  (both Elephant Press, 2019) and forthcoming, Fabric-ation: Slip Back to Source, a Journey of Materials, which will be launched at ONCA on Tuesday 4th February, 6.30 - 8.30 pm. Free. All welcome.

This year, our first workshop is for Sussex Wildlife Trust at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, as part of Jane Lovell's residency there, on Thursday 6th February:

https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/whats-on/2020-02-06-globesongs-with-kay-syrad-and-clare-whistler-rye-06022020

From Saturday 4th May we are running another 6-week course at Knepp Wildland, starting with a walking safari.

On Saturday 11th July, we have a day workshop at another Sussex Wildlife Trust site, Woods Mill near Henfield.

Details and booking soon for these soon.

NEW ECO-POETRY COURSE AT ONCA, BRIGHTON

FABRIC-ATION:  Slip back to source: a journey of natural materials.

Please join me and Clare Whistler for our new 6-week eco-poetry course at the environmental and social justice space, ONCA, starting on Tuesday 24 September: 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ecopoetry-course-changing-everything-carefully-3-tickets-66650217595