Well-wooded Words
18th and 19th July 2015
a poetry trail through Grinlow Woods
during Buxton Arts Festival
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| a delicate moment from the 2014 Art Trail |
weaving words through trees and bushes,
poems through the flowers
inviting visitors to wonder as they wander
to enjoy the richness of the woods,
the beauty of stone
and to touch the emotional heart of their summer
In a companion trail to this year's Grinlow Art And Storytelling Trail (website on its way, meanwhile you could visit the facebook page), we are inviting poets, scribblers, scrawlers and storywriters to submit pieces for a trail of words and wonders through Grinlow Woods
The Art Trail and its attendant activities were a great success last year, so we thought it would be good to add another strand to that creative woodland experience.
“We” are Stone and Water, the Buxton-based community group who celebrate the richness and creativity of the Peaks through projects like Exploring With Stories and Ancient Landscapes.
We are looking for pieces (poems or prose) that might
- draw their inspiration from Buxton and the Peak District
- provoke reflection about the area
- use these landscapes to challenge reader’s own perceptions of themselves
- or something like that
So we invite you, challenge you, to share your enjoyment, your passions, your delights and your despairs of, from or about the Peaks and send us your words for the Grinlow Poetry Trail
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our Trail won't take us into the caves but your poems might grow
from those beautiful underground palaces |
FINE DETAILS (and some small print!)
What will be happening?
On the weekend of the Art Trail (18, 19 July 2015), our poems and stories will be laminated and presented through Grinlow Woods in Buxton Country Park. The Poetry Trail will follow a similar route to the Art Trail (see below). There will also, hopefully, be storytellers performing, poetry/writing workshops, make your own woodland book activities and perhaps some poetry readings (let us know if you’d like to be involved in that)
Our trail will have its own map and possibly a booklet (available to buy) of all our juicy poems and stories
How long a piece can you submit?
We are allocating each writer the equivalent of 2 sides of A4 (so please, no monstrous tomes or Homeric epics!) and in a largish font, maybe 20pt, for ease of reading. If you're not sure, just send your piece in and we'll advise. Of course you don't need to send in that much: if you compose precise and elegant single haiku or tanka, maybe just one will say exactly what you want. At the moment, we will only accept one submission (ie one longer piece or several short poems) from each poet. If space arises we might invite more contributions from existing Trailers
Where will our poems be?
The Trail will wend its way up through Grinlow Woods from the Visitor Centre car park towards Solomon Temple (but will probably stop just short of the upper edge of the woods
Until we see what is coming in, we can't say where pieces will go. if you have a piece that definitely needs to be displayed by rocks, or a park bench or an oak tree, say, let us know
Complementing the Art Trail
Our poetry trail will run along a similar route to the Art Trail. Poems do not need to associate with artworks unless you want them to. We don't really know what other art is going up until the last minute so we cannot advise you of what's going to be around. If you know an exhibiting artist, why not scheme wildly with them, keep us in the loop, and it might all be wonderful when we display words and visuals together
Filthy Lucre
We are not planning this as a money-making activity but we would like to generate enough cash to design and print poetry trail maps and maybe produce that booklet of poems for sale. We are asking for a contribution of £10 for each submission (ie for each poet's contribution not for each individual poem). Don't send any money with your submission. We'll contact you about money and other fine tuning when your contribution is accepted
Being organised and officious
And we're sorry to say this but there will need to be a bit of editorial control here: please don't send in anything offensive, or discriminatory. Our boundaries are very flexible but there are limits and we will reserve the right to simply say "no". We'll try not to, but that reservation needs to be there
First deadline: we need to have a working set of poems by 31st March 2015: enough for us to know the plan is viable
Second deadline: assuming we get enough poems to make the Poetry Trail viable, we'll go on taking new submissions until the end of May
Submissions:
email your work to
Gordon MacLellan: stoneandwater@btinternet.comPlease send it as an attachment in Word or TextMake sure: your name and contact details are also on the attachmentBy post: to Creeping Toad, 51-d West Road, Buxton, SK17 6HQ
and we'll be in touch!
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| Grinlow Woods, paths to wonder |
So! flex those fingers, ink up those quills,
charge up your keyboards, knot your strings
and carve your runes
