Introducing the Poetry, Heritage, and Community Project
What is the relationship between poetry and place at heritage sites?
What is the relationship between poetry and place at heritage sites?
Why are some heritage sites privileged with substantial and valued poetic legacies whilst others are not?
Where do we find ‘untold’ stories which can be told, or retold, through a poetic perspective?
These are some of the questions the Poetry, Heritage and Community: Inspiring Voices project will focus on over the coming year. In this first blogpost, we introduce the project and its aims.
Professor Christine Gerrard at the University of Oxford, and Dr Andrew Hann at English Heritage have developed the project from their previous collaborations exploring the literary legacies of Wrest Park (English Heritage) and Wimpole Hall (National Trust). In these projects they explored ways in which literary texts might be used to inspire and engage communities and young audiences with local heritage spaces.
University of Oxford students: part of a previous project “Reuniting the lost literary legacies of Wrest Park and Wimpole Hall”
Poetry, Heritage and Community aims to build on this work. It focuses on poetry as a powerful and affective tool for exploring the hidden histories and contemporary resonances of heritage sites and engaging visitors and local communities. English Heritage’s 400-plus sites across the country – from prehistoric henges, castles, abbeys, stately houses and palaces to industrial heritage sites and cold war bunkers – have the potential to yield rich, diverse and largely underexplored poetic associations.
The first phase of our research will focus on a sample of these sites chosen to represent different time periods and areas of the country. Simultaneously we are taking a ‘deep dive’ into a small number of Case Study sites identified as particularly rich in poetic potential. Here we will undertake in-depth archival research and site visits. We are interested in exploring all kinds of poetry relating to these heritage sites (both historical and contemporary) – from well-known and high-profile formally published poems to poems found in letters, diaries and scrapbooks, graffiti, written by visitors and local people. We aim to build a composite picture of poetic legacies, poetic receptions, and – equally important - poetic potential: sites’ ability to excite and engage new audiences through new forms of creativity.
The project's overarching aim is to show how engaging with poetry has the potential to deepen and enhance visitor experience and in turn inspire new forms of creative local heritage for current and future generations. We will identify areas for future research collaboration; and demonstrate how research can inform interpretation and generate workshop materials. We will encourage a wide range of visitors and audiences to engage with English Heritage sites through poetry. including writing their own poems!
One of the project’s most exciting dimensions is its interdisciplinary approach. The project team includes experts from English Literature, heritage and history, museums and collections, archaeology, environmental humanities, project management, community and public engagement, and colleagues skilled in practice-based and creative writing of poetry.
You can find out more about the project team here
Bringing together such diverse perspectives on the poetic legacies of English Heritage has already sparked fresh and unusual insights and we believe that as we build our collaboration across the coming months, we will generate some powerful and enduring project outputs.
During the year ahead, we will be using this blog to share emerging themes and insights from the research – including pieces on the poetic resonances of Bolsover Castle and the prehistoric sites of Avebury, how we might think about poetic absences and silences, and the relationships between poetry and place.
Bolsover Castle (photograph by Abbi Flint)
Avebury henge and stone circles (photograph by Abbi Flint)
If you would like to talk to one of the project team please get in touch via torch@humanities.ox.ac.uk
