Leave a Comment · Posted on November 1, 2024
Working with mentor, Vicky Morris, Warda devised and delivered workshops inspired by the canal’s waterways, wildlife and histories with members of the public and young people from the Mixing Roots Programme.
The project culminated in Warda creating a crowd-sourced poem using writing produced in the workshops. The poem ‘Canal Works’, inspired an installation by local Sheffield artist Grace Visions which is now displayed along a wall by the Bacon Lane Bridge entrance of the Sheffield to Tinsley Canal, with an accompanying QR code to the full poem.
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You can watch short films [by Aidan Joseph] of the poem and the creation of the installation here.
Read the full text of the poem here.
Read more about Warda’s experience creating the poem here.
Learn more about The Poetry Society and what we do here.
Learn more about the Canal & River Trust here.
Huge thanks to The Poetry Society, Julia Bird and Billie Manning for this fantastic opportunity for young writers on the Mixing Roots Programme.
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 28, 2024
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 21, 2024
A Hive Writers’ Day with Rory Waterman
Sunday 20th October 2024 10.30am to 4/4.30pm (with refreshments & lunch break)
Open to young writers (all levels & interests, aged 15 to 30) from across South Yorkshire & the nearby north
The poet Roy Marshall has said that the best poetry is often ‘working consistently towards telling a particular emotional truth’. The thing about good short poems is that you can carry them around in your head – in a more complete way than is possible with a song, a painting, or (at least in most cases) a story. What an amazing opportunity poets have to create brain-portable art that scratches that ever-human itch for truth!
Join prize-winning poet Rory Waterman, author of four collections with Carcanet, to explore both how to write short poems that get stuck in people’s heads, and to consider how we can approach or create the emotional ‘truth’ of a poem. Along the way, you’ll develop your skills in writing powerful images, meaningful line-breaks, and other useful skills to help your poems snap into focus.
Expect a relaxed and supportive day of discussing and responding to an exciting range of poems and writing exercises, and come away with fresh ideas, new drafts and inspiring approaches to writing poems of brevity and truth. Rory will also read from his own work and give tips and tricks on what’s helped him develop as a poet.
Cost: £10 | Booking: [email protected]
Where: Cantor Building, Arundel Street, Sheffield (4 minutes from the train station) Stree view here.
Supported by English & Humanities at Sheffield Hallam University
(Following this writers’ day we have this evening/6.30pm event with Rory Waterman)
Rory Waterman’s collections, all published by Carcanet, are: Tonight the Summer’s Over (2013; PBS Recommendation, shortlisted for a Seamus Heaney Award); Sarajevo Roses (2017; shortlisted for Ledbury Forte Prize); Sweet Nothings (2020); and, most recently, Come Here to This Gate (2024), described in the Guardian as ‘a wise and deeply satisfying book’. He is on the English and Creative Writing faculty at NTU, writes regularly for the TLS and other publications, and co-edits New Walk Editions. Author website: www.rorywaterman.com
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 13, 2024
Rory Waterman & Hive New Poets Prize Winners Reading
Over the last 8 years, Hive Young Writers Network has nurtured many fine emerging South Yorkshire poets including an incredible 8 winners of the International New Poets Prize for writers aged 17 to 24. Join poets from this list, including 2024 highly commended Sheffield Young Writer Charlie Jolley, and 2022 winner Beth Davies, for a glorious reading of new and prize-winning work. Carcanet poet and critic Rory Waterman will introduce the evening and read from his latest work.
Sunday 20th Oct 6.30pm doors | starts 6.50pm to 8/8.30pm | Venue update: Performance Lab, SHU Arundel Gate, Sheffield | 4 mins from Train/Bus Station | Tickets: £6/£3 | Eventbrite | This event followed a writers’ day workshop masterclass with Rory Waterman, details here
In partnership with Off the Shelf
Hive New Poets winners over the years: Warda Yassin (2018), Safia Khan (2021), Lauren Hollingsworth Smith (2020), Georgie Woodhead (2020), Beth Davies (2022), Luke Worthy (2023) Freya Bantiff (2023) Charlie Jolley (2024)
Rory Waterman’s collections, all published by Carcanet, are: Tonight the Summer’s Over (2013; PBS Recommendation, shortlisted for a Seamus Heaney Award); Sarajevo Roses (2017; shortlisted for Ledbury Forte Prize); Sweet Nothings (2020); and, most recently, Come Here to This Gate (2024), described in the Guardian as ‘a wise and deeply satisfying book’. He is on the English and Creative Writing faculty at NTU, writes regularly for the TLS and other publications, and co-edits New Walk Editions. Author website: www.rorywaterman.com
The New Poets Prize is a pamphlet competition for writers between the ages of 17 and 24. The prize was launched in 2015 and runs annually alongside the renowned Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Competition, which has now been established for 38 years. Previous judges of the New Poets Prize include Helen Mort, Andrew McMillan, Kayo Chingonyi, Mary Jean Chan, Luke Kennard and Kim Moore. Winners of the New Poets Prize have gone on to publish full-length collections with notable publishers, including Carcanet and Bloodaxe Books, have been appointed as workshop facilitators, editors-in-residence, and competition judges (such as for the Forward Prizes), have launched and performed their pamphlets on national radio and at prestigious venues, and have been widely reviewed.
Charlie Jolley is a young poet and fiction writer. She is a top 15 winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, 2023 & 2024. In 2023 she was also the winner of the Waltham Forest Young Poets Prize, the Hexham Young People’s Poetry Competition, and the Poem:99 Poetry Competition, as well as placing second in the East Riding Festival of Words, and the Charles Causley Young Poets Prize. She has been published by The Poetry Society, Zoetic Press, and in Hive anthologies Dear Life, After Hours, The Camellia House & Other Stories. She is an alumnus of Sheffield Young Writers and a member of Hive Poetry Collective.
Highly commended in the New Poets Prize 2024: Judge Holly Hopkins said of ‘The Dreamers’
“Charlie Jolley’s The Dreamers demonstrates a talent for dramatic monologues which directs the reader to consider different moments in history and how they relate politically and emotionally.”
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Luke Worthy is a queer poet and fiction writer living between Sheffield and Amsterdam. His work has appeared in Poetry Wales, fourteen poems, East of the North (The Poetry Business), Queer Responses to Dante’s Inferno (Carrion Press), Soapbox Journal, Arji’s Poetry Pickle Jar, and anthologised in various books including After Hours & Surfing the Twilight (Hive Books), and Broken Sleep’s Masculinity: an anthology of modern voices. He was commissioned by the British Library and Leeds 2023 to write a piece of children’s literature for the Northern Dreaming anthology. He was a digital poet-in-residence for The Poetry Business in 2022, a young poet-in-residence for Sheaf Poetry Festival 2023, and a shadow judge for the Forward Prize 2024.
A winner of the New Poets Prize 2023: Judge Kim Moore said of ‘On What Could String’:
“From a jellyfish like a ‘tumour of salt and sand’ to a meditation on Putin’s penis and toxic masculinity – these poems are full of surprising images and wide-ranging in their interrogations – of class, sexuality, homophobia and masculinity.
Freya Bantiff is a Sheffield poet who recently placed third in the National Poetry Competition 2022 and was highly commended in the Ginkgo Prize for Ecopoetry 2022. She was joint winner of the 2022 Bridport Poetry Prize (18-25s) (while being highly commended in their overall competition) and winner of the Canterbury Poet of the Year Competition 2021. Freya’s poems and stories have been placed in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award (2021), Mslexia Flash Fiction Competition (2020), Ilkley Literature Festival’s Poetry Competition (2010 – 2015) and Foyle Young Poet of the Year (2015), along with many others. She has an MA in Poetry from UEA and was Apprentice Poet in Residence at Ilkley Literature Festival 2023.
A winner of the New Poets Prize 2023: Judge Kim Moore said on “All Appears Ordinary”:
‘Nothing is truly ordinary in this extraordinary pamphlet, where owls are ‘light as an eyelash blown for luck’ … These poems keep the faith that language can illuminate anything – from everyday acts of love like the removal of nits from a child’s head to the extinction of a species.’
Beth Davies’ debut pamphlet, The Pretence of Understanding, was published by The Poetry Business in 2023 after winning the 2022 New Poets Prize. She will soon be taking on the mantle of the 2024-26 Sheffield Poet Laureate. Beth won second place in the 2021 Dead Cat Poetry Prize and in the 2022 Magdalena Young Poets’ Prize. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Wales, Ink Sweat & Tears, Candlestick Press’ Ten Poems about Flowers, and Valley Press’ Verse Matters. In addition to being a member of Hive Poetry Collective, Beth is a graduate of The Writing Squad, Durham University Slam Team, and Sheffield Young Writers.
A winner of the New Poets Prize 2022: Judge Anthony Anaxagorou said of ‘The Pretence of Understanding’:
“A beautifully strange and encoded book. I was particularly drawn to the tensions made between a place and a self – the longing to connect while remaining cautious as to what that connection asked for.”
Safia Khan is a newly qualified doctor and poet. Her debut pamphlet (Too Much Mirch, Smith | Doorstop) won the 2021 New Poet’s Prize. Her work has been published in various journals and anthologies including The North, BATH MAGG, Poetry Wales, Introduction X: The Poetry Business Book of New Poets (New Poets List), We’re All in It Together: Poems for a disUnited Kingdom (Grist), Dear Life (Hive), Surfing the Twilight (Hive). She has been commissioned to write poetry for the University of Huddersfield and The British Library. Safia has performed her work widely, including as a headliner for Off The Shelf Festival. She has delivered poetry workshops for The Poetry Business, and seminars for the University of Oxford on the role of poetry as patient advocacy. Safia has been invited to deliver a creative writing teaching series with Nottingham Trent University’s WRAP Program, as their featured writer for 2023.
Lauren Hollingsworth-Smith is a poet and artist based in Rotherham and Oxford. Her work has been published in various anthologies including She Will Soar (Pan Macmillan 2020), Dear Life & After Hours (Hive Books). Her debut pamphlet Ugly Bird was a winner of the New Poets Prize 2020. In 2019 she was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year and was highly commended in the Young Northern Writers’ Award. Lauren has performed at various events and festivals, including Ledbury and Kendal Poetry Festivals and Off the Shelf Festival of Words. Look How Alive is Lauren’s debut full-length collection (Published by Write bloody in 2022)
A winner of the New Poets Prize 2020: Judge Luke Kennard said of ‘Ugly Bird’:
“Hollingsworth-Smith’s poems are immediately and joyfully readable even at their darkest, and Ugly Bird is full of masterful juxtapositions, emotional swerves and perfect details (the angle of an OHP, the plastic tiara prongs). It’s such a skill to navigate these waters with such attentiveness; defiant, ecstatic powers of observation transfiguring the ordinary with wit and self-awareness.”
Warda Yassin is an award-winning British born Somali poet and secondary school teacher based in Sheffield. She was a winner of the 2018 New Poets Prize for her debut pamphlet Tea with Cardamom (Poetry Business, published 2019). Her poetry has been published in places like The North, Magma and Oxford Poetry, and anthologised in Verse Matters (Valley Press), Anthology X (Smith|Doorstep), More Fiyah (Cannongate) & Surfing the Twilight (Hive). She won 2020 Womens Poet Prize and was the Sheffield Poet Laureate from 2020-2022. She is a member of Hive poetry collective.
A winner of the New Poets Prize 2018: Judge Kayo Chingonyi said of ‘Tea With Cardamon’
These poems struck me as wonderfully contemporary while gesturing towards something ancient in their frequent recourse to that which is passed down, as well as that which we improvise as our own pathways unfold. The poems invoke a world within a world making for a multi-layered perspective on life in the UK at the present moment.
Info coming
A winner of the New Poets Prize 2020: Judge Luke Kennard said of ‘Takeaway’
Takeaway is a vivid and powerful collection. Expansive but precise lines and stanzas give Woodhead the space to explore the lives and scenes they depict. So many of the images here are breathtaking and will really stay with me. ‘Harry Collins’ is such a vivid, poignant and angry character study and the title poem alone was enough to convince me that I was in the presence of a significant and urgent new voice. Uncompromising in its depiction of brutalities without ever sacrificing the humanity and compassion of the poet’s vision.
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 13, 2024
May Day – Jackie Kay
with support from Hive poets Danaé Wellington & Beth Davies
8pm 24th Oct | Montgomery Theatre, Sheffield | Tickets £8/£10
One of our best-loved poets and former Makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay reads from new collection May Day. These poems explore decades of political activism, accompanying her parents’ Socialist campaigns, through the feminist, LGBT+ and anti-racist movements of the 80s/90s to the present day and Black Lives Matter. Kay brings to life influential figures including Paul Robeson as well as sharing poems of grief and love following the loss of her parents.
With support from Hive poets Beth Davies and Danaé Wellington.
click here for tickets
Leave a Comment · Posted on August 13, 2024
In celebration of the newly refurbished Camellia House tearoom situated in the gardens of Wentworth Woodhouse’s captivating Grade II* listed mansion, join emerging young writers from the Hive network for the launch of an anthology of poetry and writing inspired by Wentworth’s families, gardens and histories. Among many other fascinating insights, learn about the significance of pineapples and tea for South Yorkshire’s most renowned aristocratic dynasty. Hosted by contributing Hive writer Beth Davies (announcement to follow!)
The book will be available to buy on the day. (Please bring cash as we may not have a card machine.)
The Camellia House & Other Stories offers us a beautiful and varied collection of hymns to the past, as emerging writers celebrate and sing the history of Wentworth Woodhouse. Here you will find exotic animal interactions and religious visions, the voices of aristocrats, servants and disgruntled vegetables, the sound of giggles which carry across history. This wonderful collection creates a place in which the writers of tomorrow and the people of history can meet, through the magic of language, in the most fantastic, shared now.”
Jonathan Edwards: Poet & Fiction Writer
‘This superb book’s heart beats with the transcendent power of creative responses to history. Each piece here could be a freshly painted room in the great Wentworth House, and each piece could also be a well-lit space in the huge and evolving edifice that is new writing. Read this book. Relish it and feel inspired. Then, of course, write something of your own…” Ian McMillan, Poet & Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Verb
Funded & supported by The Heritage Lottery, Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, Hive South Yorkshire & Off the Shelf Festival of Words
Contributing writers: