Thursday 15 July 2021, 5-7pm | Online

This workshop takes a different approach to writing about nature and the landscape, thinking about how and where we meet ’nature’ if we cannot access ‘wild’ spaces, or if our access to ‘wild spaces’ comes at a bodily cost. It asks you to explore the ways in which you experience ’nature’ in your daily life: looking in pavement cracks or ceilings corners, out the window, on your doorstep; looking at the small, slowly. We will also think about the role of imagination, memory and research - of travelling in the mind if we can’t travel in our bodies. 

 Polly Atkin lives in Cumbria. Her first poetry collection Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) is followed by second, Much With Body (Seren: 2021), and a biography Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021). She is working on a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability.  

She has taught English and Creative Writing at QMUL, Lancaster University, and the Universities of Strathclyde and Cumbria. With Kate Davis and Anita Sethi she co-founded the Open Mountain initiative at Kendal Mountain Festival, which seeks to centre voices that are currently at the margins of outdoor, mountain and nature writing.