Organisers: Dr Anke Bernau and Dr Abbi Flint (Email anke.bernau@manchester.ac.uk)

In this interactive workshop, we invite you to explore how poetry can be a creative research method for thinking and writing about plants. Plants have long inspired and been represented in many cultural productions, including poetry. In the nineteenth century, for instance, poetry was often included in popularised botanical writing as it was thought to inspire and affect the reader's curiosity and feeling for plants. Plants and poetry invite close attention; both ask us to think with and through form. Rooted in Richardson and St Pierre’s (2015) notion that “writing is thinking, writing is analysis, writing is indeed a seductive and tangled method of discovery,” we will explore poetic inquiry as a method that can both enliven and surface aspects of our multi-species relationships with plants. No previous creative writing experience is necessary and there will be no obligation to share the writing you produce in the workshop. We will provide supportive and structured prompts for you to start your own research poems through material and multi-sensory engagements with plants.

(Please note: Events in this series are open to University of Manchester staff and PGRs only)