Telepoetry (2020)
By
Gabriella Gay
A photograph of Nicola Winstanley (Voluntary Art) and Gabriella Gay (Roaming Poet) speaking on old-fashioned telephones, outdoors on a sunny day. Photo credit: Andrew Brunt, Stoke-on-Trent City Council.
Telephone poems reaching isolated people during lockdown.
Telepoetry was a poetry project produced by Gabriella Gay and run by The Roaming Poet during May and June 2020, to enrich the lives of isolated family members, friends and strangers during the global pandemic lockdown. It was made possible by a micro-grant from Voluntary Arts for resources and the devotion and generosity of poets and the public in Staffordshire.
Formed in 2016, as part of Stoke Art Map project, The Roaming Poets are a group of writers who take to the streets to share their passion for poetry. This ad-hoc group of local writers have delighted pedestrians at Festival Stoke, The Etruria Canal Festival, as part of Poetry at Bus Stops and Stoke Christmas light switch-on. They have led an (Un)Official tour of Stoke, and they supported Stoke’s bid to become City of Culture 2021.
At a time when everyone was tiring of excessive screen time, and the large group of people unable to access online activity became more isolated, The Roaming Poets’ #GetCreativeAtHome project encouraged the sharing of poetry in Staffordshire using telephones. It was an accessible, auditory poetry experience between strangers, family or friends. In May 2020, the Roaming Poets led two open online poetry workshops for the public to write short poems suitable to be texted (160 characters) and heard on a telephone or mobile phone. On Telepoem Thursday, 28th May 2020, a made up day created for the project, people all over Staffordshire were encouraged to share a poem with someone they know. This could be their own poem or their favourite poem. Poems were texted too.
On ‘Telepoem Thursday’, the group launched an 0800 number that people could call to hear a poem by a Staffordshire poet, record a poem or get through to a Roaming Poet to hear a poem live. The line was live for a month, and publicised and supported by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, BBC Radio Stoke, Babababoon and Appetite Stoke, who put the telepoem phone line on this Appetite Bites programme of art to engage with during lockdown.
“ I actually enjoyed being dragged from creative inertia ”
The Telepoetry project enabled nine poets to work together during lockdown. The project was vital to get us working creatively whilst still adhering to government guidelines . It also gave us experience facilitating workshops using online tools such as Zoom. The project enabled us to engage with a range of new people via the poetry workshops, on Telepoem Thursday and via the line. This was particularly effective as we worked with a range of organisations to share the fliers.
An older lady who received the leaflet through one of the B-arts bread in common bags, texted to say how much she enjoyed the poetry. She is self-isolating , lives alone, hasn’t been able to go for walks and doesn’t have a garden. She was elated at the poetry phone line. In addition, we were contacted and sent poems by a range of people, who had seen sponsored posts. They sent poems to share. We learned a lot about how to securely deliver fliers during lockdown.
For the delivery of the fliers we worked with All The Small Things CIC, North Staffs Afro-Caribbean Society (NORSACA),Bread in Common at B-arts and Affordable Foods. What we didn't expect was , we were nominated for a 'Our Heros' award, and the Sentinel newspaper ran a story on the phone line. In addition, we were contacted by organisations in Telford , Coventry and Manchester who wanted to set up Telepoem Phone Lines. We held a Zoom meeting to share learning with these organisations, the Creative Network Meeting and an artist inspired to set up a phone line play. The play was commissioned, and we as poets got to enjoy it.
To listen to a teleaudio poem, select from the links below:
