Workshop: Sea poetry

Sea Poetry Workshop with Mor Poets Ella Walsworth-Bell & Kate Barden

Date: 21st November 2023,
When: 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Where: The Writers’ Block, The Ladder, 2-4 Clinton Road, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 2QE

TICKETS: Available on Eventbrite £10-£15

This workshop takes the sea as our starting point and will draw on our own joyful memories and experiences in and around the coastline. A series of exercises will strengthen our creative muscles and get us putting pen to paper together. We will add sensory elements to our poems by using natural objects and visual prompts. Anyone – anyone! – can create poetry and gift it to themselves in their own unique voice. Whether you’ve written poetry before or are simply interested in trying something new, this workshop is open to all. Let’s drift away on an ocean of words…

Mor Poets is a collective of women poets living in Cornwall who are inspired to write about the sea. Described as a ‘shoal of mer-poets’, they’ve created a successful anthology- Morvoren- exploring women sea swimming through poems and photographic imagery. They are currently supported by Arts Council England on Mordardh- a surf poetry collection. Mor Poets include: Ella Walsworth-Bell, Kate Barden, Fi Read, Kerry Vincent, Ruth Eggins, Abigail Ottley, Morag Smith, Megan Chapman, Hannah Temme, Ulrike Duran, Polly Roberts. When they’re not writing, they’re usually found out beyond the buoys, in the briny deep.

Kate Barden has lived in West Cornwall all her life, and is embarrassed to confess that she has only tried surfing twice. Her poetry is published online, in a book for The Compassionate Friends and as part of Morvoren; a collaboration of poems about women who swim in the sea. She has co-written, directed and acted in various pieces of theatre with local companies, taking one piece to the Edinburgh Fringe. Kate has played at The Minack Theatre, Penlee Park and The Acorn. She also took part in Henry VI with the Hall for Cornwall and the RSC, and enjoys writing, performing and watching spoken word. Kate occasionally sings in an 80s covers band, collects tattoos, swims in the sea and rides pillion on a Harley. Since writing for the Mordardh project, she has decided to give surfing a proper go (drekly).

Ella Walsworth-Bell is an NHS speech therapist working within children’s mental health. She took an adult education evening class in creative writing and hasn’t looked back since. Every year, she lives aboard a boat with her family and this reconnects her to nature. She got her trusty body board and fins out of retirement for the Mordardh surf poetry project, which is supported by Arts Council England. In 2022 she co-created and published an anthology – Morvoren: the poetry of sea swimming.  Ella has published short stories in Paperbound, Mythic Circle, People’s Friend. She was commissioned to create a video-poem about climate change by Apples and Snakes and she placed second in the Perito Prize for a short story to celebrate inclusion and diversity.

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This post was written by samstone