Poetry and the Environmental Crisis – Summit 2024 and The National Poetry Centre
As the climate disaster is growing more severe, with global warming leading to extremes such as flooding and droughts, severe weather and wildfires, the importance of communicating the devastating consequences of environmental issues is at an all-time high. It is imperative that we spread the word about these catastrophic and frightening problems. Poetry has a unique power to achieve an emotional and thought-provoking response in it’s audience. As a result, poetry is one of the most effective mediums used to call attention to issues that plague our modern world. Summit Poetry Festival 2024 explored these exact concerns, with The University of Leeds’ Priestley Centre for Climate Futures joining the Poetry Centre to discuss and emphasise the role of poetry in poignantly considering and reframing our perspectives of the environment.
The festival, ran by Poetry School, focused on the importance of communicating issues around environment, nature and climate through the arts and in particular poetry, to ensure the greatest possible sympathy and emotional reaction, in a world where we are becoming desensitised to the news. The festival ran between the 19 and 20 of October – two days of inspiring performances, workshops, and discussions of ecopoetry that advocated for the integration of environmental activism and writing. Day 1 of the festival was held at Yorkshire Sculpture Park with a family poetry writing session, a petro-politics workshop that focused on writing poetry about oil and finally a workshop on bodily engagement with the environment in poetry.
Summit also extended its arms to the city, encouraging everyone in Leeds to enjoy poetry. Rubbish Words, a poetry project taking place from the 18-20 of October in the Corn Exchange gave the public an opportunity to create collage poems out of scraps from magazines, posters, leaflets, newspapers and other everyday materials to explore their imaginative side and promote the message that anyone can create poetry and in fact, great poetry can come from what might seem like ‘rubbish’.
Summit at the University of Leeds 2024
I was lucky enough to witness some of the amazing performances in the Clothworkers Concert Hall on Day 2 of the festival. Some of the highlights from the day included the opening event ‘Laurel Playback’ which included moving readings from Laurel prize winners, Hannah Copley and Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, as well as the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. Shevchenko Knight’s readings from Food for the Dead, a beautiful collection tenderly reflecting Ukrainian identity, grief and the rawness human history and experience, was unforgettable. With reference to the environment, I thought that Armitage’s reading from his pamphlet ‘The Cryosphere’ was particularly captivating.
His poem Birds of the Arctic begins:
‘When sliced open,
the cormorant’s stomach dazzled
with sequins, glow sticks and fake opals.
A running sewer
pooled in the gut of the long-tailed skua.’
Birds of the Arctic spotlights the harmful and destructive impact that humanity has on our environment, especially in relation to animals. This is an important example of how poetic language ‘sliced open’, ‘pooled’, ‘sequins, glow sticks and fake opals’ creates an emotive depiction of environmental concerns, moving the audience and encouraging them to change their perspectives and actions towards the environment.
Following this, there were some striking performances throughout the day. In particular, the closing event ‘Inward Inland’ made a lovely end to such an influential festival. The Director of the National Poetry Centre, Nick Barley, discussed the boundaries between the environment and ourselves with the wonderful, celebrated UK poets Zaffar Kunial and Karen McCarthy Woolf. Kunial’s orthographic environmental poems from England’s Green were as memorable as his engaging performance and lovely sense of humour, which was shared with McCarthy Woolf, who read from her amazingly clever collection Seasonal Disturbances. Every reading that I heard throughout the day was inspiring. Ultimately, the festival highlighted the importance of poetry in illuminating societal issues.
National Poetry Centre: coming 2027
The National Poetry will be planting its roots in Leeds! The future home of the organisation will be in Trinity St Davids, which is next to the Emmanuel Centre and nestled close to the School of English and Laidlaw library at the University of Leeds. This currently vacant building is a heritage site that will be converted into an accessible public space, welcome to everyone – the centre will ‘breathe life back into’ this Leeds landmark. Although it won’t be open until 2027, there is plenty to start getting excited about.
The National Poetry Centre will be used to host performances, with an auditorium that will seat 250 people, as well as creative workshops and seminars. It will undoubtedly be a space for education – containing poetry exhibitions, archives and quiet areas dedicated to writing but it will also be an inclusive space – home to bookshops, cafés and spaces for people to connect over a love of poetry, performance and art. This space will be an amazing addition to the brilliant and vibrant Arts and Culture scene in Leeds City and the North of England as a whole. Trinity St Davids is the perfect site for the National Poetry Centre because it will encourage the spread of poetry throughout the North of England.
The importance of an inclusive and educational space for poetry
As a student from the North East, I feel that the range of opportunities for poetry across the UK is disparate, with the majority of poetry spaces concentrated in London like Poetry School, The National Poetry Library and The Poetry Society. Some fellow School of English students shared their views:
“The Summit Festival was an unforgettable experience as poetry became its own entity that celebrated our place in nature whilst capturing the hearts of the audience, including my own. The world has been enlightened in a new and exciting way that interconnects language and humanity with local and global environments.” – H.S, English Language and Literature Student.
“Northern poets are some of the best in the world and I am happy that the National Poetry Centre will recognise and celebrate northern artists” – R.B, English Literature and Philosophy Student.
“As an English student who has lived in Leeds for the last 20 years, I am delighted to hear about the National Poetry Centre and its support of local creatives. Choosing Leeds for the centre’s location invites a broader group of individuals who are perhaps searching for a third space between work and their homes, where can they explore the country’s overall cultural heritage against the familiar backdrop of Yorkshire.” – S.C, English Literature Student.
Overall, it is clear that this is step in the right direction to extend opportunities for people to discover, experience and participate in poetry across the North and what better city to start with than Leeds. Summit festival 2024 highlighted the pivotal role of poetry in enlightening people to the environmental crisis we are facing today. This diffusion of poetry will broaden its impact of spreading perspectives on societal issues, not just about the environment but also topics such as gender inequality, modern politics, issues of human rights, conflicts, abuse, sexuality and gun violence to name a few. The National Poetry Centre will play a crucial part in this spread of poetry across the UK, particularly into the North. Although it seems like a long way off, I can’t wait to see preparations begin.
Words by Jess Hill
