Echoing the sky

Echoing the sky

words from Whispers in the Grass

an event report

our venue

A couple of weeks ago, a group of cheerfully creative folks gathered in the fields and garden of te Dove Valley Centre in the Staffordshire Moorlands. In the hills around are wild moors, bleak rocky landscapes and the deep mysterious cleft of Lud’s Church. Here in the Upper Dove Valley, however, we settle into a world of the green, the growing and the buzzing and fluttering….This was a day for words, and wandering, and wondering, for drawing, scribbling, sketching and eating picnics and the partaking of cake. It was a day to simply enjoy being there, being here, at the Dove Valley Centre in the Upper Dove Valley

These hills,
Buttress the sky,
Green mounds echo the sky
Draw rain into this deep valley
Its thirst
by Mary King

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.


A walk into sunshine
A walk into grass
Insects hiding
Milk churns peeping
Flowers creeping
Memories to take home
by Pauline


POET C*
Whispers in the grass
Little rustles through small stems
Wind flowing freely

Performance begun
Wind playing its instruments
Grass whispers softly

poets and artists at work!

PAULINE’S TAKE ON POETRY
I am just a simple soul,
I don’t go in for complicated rigmarole.
To me a poem is something that rhymes
Although it doesn’t have to
At other times
It may just be beautiful, descriptive and uplifting.
A basic education allows for a shifting and drifting into, out of the box,
Unusual thinking, original, maybe crass
Sometimes its better than nice, precise
Taking more informed advice
I enjoy lots of things
Nature especially - yes and whispering grass.
It sounds poetic
And if it’s easy to verse
I will enjoy the experience of thinking it, crafting it, writing it, creating it,
That may not warrant a degree but it’s a first

With thanks to all our Whispering poets!
All photos c/o Borderland Voices and Richard Egan

* sorry! I didn't get a note of your names!