How about Making an Elmet Bestiary!
Join us for a day-long children’s workshop, reworking some of Ted Hughes’ bestiary as original poetry-animals. Hughes’ collection The Iron Wolf maps the habits and ecological relationships of many animals found living along the Rochdale Canal. After walking on the wild side, from 1 Aspinall Street to Hebden Bridge, and reading many of these poems along the way, workshop participants will have the chance to craft a poetry-animal, in response to a favourite poem.
After sketching these animals in prose, poetry and fabric forms, we will take the bus back to Mytholmroyd. Once returned to 1 Aspinall Street, we will install your fabric poetry animals as an insitu -bestiary. The Elmet Trust is already excited to imagine how your work will look, inside the house where Ted Hughes was born!
This workshop is led by Rachel Hosein Nisbet of Le Puits, the Story Well. She has given creative writing workshops in France, the UK and Switzerland, including at the Universities of Zurich, Neuchâtel and Lausanne.
You can book here.
Detailed Programme:
10:00 Meet at 1 Aspinall Street. Please bring:
a pay-what-you-can donation for the workshop.
a water bottle, and packed lunch.
suncream or a raincoat, as appropriate for the weather on the day.
shoes for walking outside, on rough ground, for about an hour.
10:15 We will walk to 2 Fountain Street, Hebden Bridge via the Rochdale Canal and the River Calder, reading selected animal poems from The Iron Wolf (1998) en-route.
11:30 After arriving at 2 Fountain Street, you can shape your poetry-animal!
First, picked an animal you liked during the walk. Then, working with sounds and images this part of the workshop will help you make a fabric animal form that speaks to a narrative poem draft you will also create. There will time for a picnic lunch, too!
14:30 We will return to 1 Aspinall St by bus, to install our menagerie and share lines from the poems you are shaping.
16:00 End of Workshop