Poetry Found at Bradgate Park

Last week, I took students on Loughborough University’s MA in Creative Writing to Bradgate Park. For some of them, it is a place that they’ve been familiar with from childhood. For others, including our Erasmus students from Slovenia, it was a totally new.

I asked the group to write about the natural life and the human visitors to the Park, and then we looked around the display at the Visitor Centre. For this exercise, the group were asked to write an autobiographical poem: the catch being that they were only allowed to use phrases and sentences taken from the information boards.

They rose to the challenge brilliantly, so here’s an example by Kathryn Cockrill. Her first book of short stories comes out next year, but she also likes finding poetry….

 

Ornamental Remains

I am a picturesque ruin,
cracks formed from
explosive eruptions,
damaged by erosion,
a windswept wilderness.

I am a sanctuary,
a great estate of
tantalising wildwood,
stronger, a miniature
mountain.

I am ash and fire,
entertained by uninhabited culture,
no natural predators in
a delicate haven.

I will thrive.