Poetry films & empathy: a guest blog for the Children’s Poetry Summit

In an earlier blog for the Children's Poetry Summit I wrote about Making Poetry Films which sparked quite a bit of interest so I thought I’d look at poetry film-making again, this time from a slightly different angle. My poetry collection You Are Not Alone (Troika, 2023), on teen and young adult mental health and wellbeing, has …

‘You Are Not Alone’ selected for Empathy Lab’s Read for Empathy Collection 2024

I'm absolutely thrilled that my poetry collection You Are Not Alone has been selected by Empathy Lab for inclusion in their 2024 Read for Empathy Collection and campaign. The annual Read for Empathy Collection features 65 books for 3-16 year olds, chosen by a panel of judges for their empathy-building power. The books will be …

Making poetry films: a guest blog for the Children’s Poetry Summit

Have you ever fancied turning a poem into a short film? Back in 2018 I was invited to join The Poetry Film Collective, an Arts Council-funded series of workshops led by Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron of Poetry Film Live, designed to teach poets some of the basic skills of poetry film-making. If you'd like to …

‘Haiku Futures’ by Hot Poets: bringing poetry and science together to imagine a better possible future

Hot Poets is an award-winning, internationally focused initiative that seeks to powerfully communicate climate change science and action through spoken word poetry. Their latest project is 'Haiku Futures', in which Hot Poets have partnered with UNFCCC’s Resilience Frontiers to create a global participation project to gather your ideas for a better future. In the weeks leading …

Social anxiety: using poetry to talk about young people’s mental health

It's Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, and this year's theme is 'Anxiety'. Here's a guest blog post I wrote for the Children's Poetry Summit. It includes an extract from a free resource on using poems as a 'way in' to help young people talk about mental health issues. In this example, I explore social anxiety. …

‘Let’s Talk About Depression’: a new resource guide for using poetry to explore mental health & wellbeing

My new poetry collection for teens and young adults, You Are Not Alone, is all about mental health and wellbeing. I'm creating a series of resources / guides to accompany the book, offering ideas and suggestions for using the poems in therapeutic, school, community or family settings to help explore different aspects of mental health …

‘Let’s Talk About Anxiety’: a new resource guide for using poetry to explore mental health & wellbeing

Poetry can be a great resource for exploring our thoughts and feelings, providing a ‘way in’ to help us connect with different parts of ourselves and communicate with others, particularly when it comes to challenging conversations. Sometimes it can be helpful to explore a topic from a ‘safe distance’ using scenarios or characters in a …