Dawn Gorman believes poetry should be everywhere - puts it on beermats,
uses it to
work with people with memory loss, facilitates writing workshops,
organises poetry
events and runs international poetry competitions. She is
widely published, and has
performed in New York, Paris, London - and lots of
smaller places in between.
“Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket;
you put
your life into it and make something out of that.”
Mary Oliver
Guest Poet: Stephen Seabridge
Stephen Seabridge is the Poet Laureate of Stoke-on-Trent. He is the first to be appointed to this position for the city and his Laureateship term is 2018-2020. Stephen is born and bred in the city, having grown up, worked and studied in Stoke-on-Trent. Though he is averse to categorising his work too much, his poetry and art focuses on working class identity, boyhood and manhood, and how identity is tied irrevocably to place. His latest works involve a series of commissions throughout the city, including a poem written in response to the recent 14-18 Now installation Weeping Window exhibited at Middleport Pottery and a series of poems written for the city-wide artistic heritage project DustRising.
If you want to get in contact with Stephen, he is active on Twitter at: @S_Seabridge. He is also available via email at: stephenseabridge@outlook.com.