Inspiring Voices

Inspiring Voices is a new poetry programme that will bring people and communities together to explore England’s heritage. A collaboration between TORCH, English Heritage, and the History of Science Museum, the  initiative will create new platforms to connect people through poetry on and off the page. By amplifying voices from across the country, the programme seeks to cultivate a powerful sense of community and belonging.

This 18-month collaborative research project with the University of Oxford and TORCH will explore the hidden histories and contemporary resonances of heritage sites through poetry. The research will consider how poetry can shape our understanding of historic places and provide a powerful and affective tool for visitor response, participation and engagement. The project is supported by John Fell funding from the University of Oxford. It will be led by TORCH Director Professor Christine Gerrard (PI), Dr JC Niala (Co-I), and Dr Andrew Hann (Co-I), working closely with Dr Abbi Flint as RA and Arunima Cheruvathoor as project support manager.

This project draws on Oxford University’s reputation for poetic scholarship and practice, building on previous collaborative research between Oxford University, English Heritage and the National Trust. Professor Gerrard worked with Dr Andrew Hann from English Heritage on Mithraic Groves and Gothic Towers: Reuniting the Lost Literary Legacies of Wrest and Wimpole funded by a TORCH Knowledge Exchange Fellowship in 2022-3. This project recovered the vibrant intellectual culture shared by Wrest Park and Wimpole Hall in the eighteenth-century and made it accessible to visitors, young people and children through student dramatic performances and reinterpretative site materials.

Poetry, Heritage and Community will further the collaborative ambition of Oxford University, English Heritage, and the History of Science Museum by demonstrating how focused scholarly research into the poetic legacies of heritage sites can translate into imaginative new approaches for visitor and audience engagement. It will show how young people, aspiring poets and performers can gain confidence by reading, creating and sharing poetry in local spaces; and how heritage and further education institutions can collaborate to change the ways we access perceived ‘elite’ or ‘high’ cultural forms.

The project will ask a number of important research questions. Why are some heritage sites privileged with a substantial and valued poetic legacy while others are not? Where do we find ‘untold stories’ which need to be told, or retold from a different perspective? How do we read non-canonical poetry linked to heritage sites: private poems found in letters, diaries and scrapbooks, or ballads, oral histories, children’s rhymes and graffiti? How can poetry, both historic and newly created, help communities to connect locally to heritage sites and to gain a renewed sense of identity and meaning? As our sense of community become increasingly diverse and global, how can we use poetry as an imaginative tool to connect us with the past and with what lies all around us?

These events will take place at selected heritage sites and the University of Oxford’s much-anticipated Schwarzman Centre. Through poetry, the project aims to deepen engagement with people and communities across the country, creating meaningful connections and celebrating diverse perspectives.

Picture credit: English Heritage
Avebury Stones painting: Bobb Rudd RI
Bolsover Castle painting: Michael South Photography