Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
Poetry with Punch
13 October 2023
On Monday, we celebrated National Poetry Day, thus marking this annual event in typical EHS fashion.
Jaimie James, our EHS Poet Laureate, led proceedings in our whole school assembly by reading out two originally created poems which were witty, deep and pertinent to this year’s theme of Refuge. Having created original content for last week’s Poetry Slam, this was especially impressive.
Then, Jaimie introduced former Birmingham Poet Laureate and Commonwealth boxing champion, Matt Windle ( https://poetrywithpunch.com/ ), who read out a moving poem in which his whole life story was condensed down to just one minute!
Year 9 then enjoyed four sessions with outside experts who, together with Matt, inspired and fuelled our students’ creative capacities throughout the day. The following professional leaders in their fields commented on how well the students engaged with their sessions, in which a variety of approaches and mediums were used:
The Art of Storytelling and 'Tales with a Twist' - Tim Franks Writing workshop
https://timfranks.org/about-me/
Creative writing - Sara-Jane Arbury poetry workshop
https://www.shropshirebookfest.co.uk/2020-poetry-by-sara-jane-arbury/
The Making Change studio podcasting (Greg & Aaron)
https://makingchangestudios.com/makinchangefoundation/
Writing for radio - Sian Medford radio workshop
https://sianymedz.wordpress.com/
The day was rounded off in the Octagon, where students had 30 minutes to ask the panel of practitioners about tips for getting into the writing, poetry, radio and podcasting
industries. Questions were genuine and the panel spoke frankly and from the heart.
We look forward to seeing how students take on board such inspiring advice in their future endeavours.
Mr Gray
Head of English
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