This year we are calling on all you amazingly musical and perfectly poetical performers to join the stages of The Wise Words Festival. During the first weekend, the Wise Words Festival and City Sound Project collaborate to create a space that celebrates music and poetry with the aim of encouraging more people to give poetry […]
CALLING ALL poets, spoken word artists, raconteurs, slam champs, authors, artists, performers, dancers and those with inspiring stories to tell… We are once again opening the floodgates to all you wizardly wonderful creative types. So, if YOU want to perform or bring your work to Wise Words then this is your chance! We’re looking for applications […]
“Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek three, and English only one. This is indicative of the poverty of awareness or emphasis that we give to that tremendously important realm of feeling. Eskimos have 30 words for snow, because it is a life-and-death matter to them to have exact information about […]
‘The patron saint of poetry’ Carol Ann Duffy ‘rueful, unpredictable observation to please the sharpest wits’ The Independent ‘a poemy torch in dark corners’ Ian McMillan - Poetry Review ‘He is a true original and more than one generation would be much the poorer without him’ The Times In an interview with the Guardian, Roger […]
Sir Robin is the watchful Guardian of the Secret Garden. Often found gobbling grubs or composing sonnets in the shrubs, his hobbies include spotting eels in the river, stories and knitting cardigans for the bees. His rakish charm, smoothly rehearsed lines and flirtatious moves have earned him a bit of a reputation. Sir Robin is proud […]
Warrior Poets was born out of an exciting partnership between The Marlowe Theatre and Workers of Art, the team behind Canterbury’s beloved Wise Words Festival. Together with artists from across the Kent and the South East, we worked with young people in care and young refugees to explore and celebrate the resilience that develops through facing adversity […]
I suppose the best answer I have to offer would have to be my all time favourite trip down memory lane… Prison. Clearly the sarcastic humour already begins to cover your second question on how I’m overcoming such a hardship… Anyway, I shall keep the details as simple as possible, not that it’s too difficult to understand, but as to attempt to show […]
I was in my wheelchair, previously, I had been diagnosed with a spinal tumour that left me with a 98% chance of never walking again, so, I was pretty fragile. But I decided to go into GAME to buy an Xbox with my mum. I was at the counter with the money in my hand and the cashier […]
Ninety five percent of the time I function without any problem. Confident, happy and personable. I forget that I have a history of depression, anxiety and OCD. Either I can’t believe these times were really that bad or my mind simply does not record the depth of suffering I experience. They say women forget the pain of childbirth […]
It started when my sister came home with her hair dyed blue one day. I was about 15, she was thirteen or fourteen. My dad took one look at her, picked her up, and just threw her across the room. My parents finally divorced shortly after that, after years of enduring an extremely resentful and […]
“School. Yeah, I never did really well at school. I failed miserably at school, then obviously I went to college and got my head down, got some qualifications, gone to college. Suffered with depression and then got into trouble and overcame that by cutting a few people out of my life. Then went back to […]
Phoebe worked as a volunteer in the Calais refugee camp, also known as the jungle, for five weeks — from July to August 2016. Like many of the volunteers, she helped to give out donations to the refugees arriving in Calais. “The people who would talk to me about trying to get across to England would […]
Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter. They lived with their Mother in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree and got into all sorts of trouble - narrowly escaping the fate of their father many times. Their father was caught by the horrid Mr McGregor […]
“A large, black room opens before us. Staring down from the rafters, the lights lightly swinging, it seems huge, expansive. ‘What would you do with this space?’, Joelle asks the kids. ‘I would stand in the corner’, replies one of them. ‘It’s too scary’. Refugees and children in care often have not always had the […]
About Warrior Poets Warrior Poets represents a partnership between Workers of Art and the Marlowe Theatre. A Lead Poet (Joelle Taylor) together with two Emerging Poets will facilitate 3 day-long workshops with a group of children in care, recruited through Virtual Schools Kent. The poems that emerge from the young people in care will be […]
Through our Rough Cut programme that supports the development of young artists (14-30), we are offering a rolling opportunity to apply to become part of the Rough Cut Collective mentored and supported by the Wise Words Team. You may be a poet looking to develop as a performer; an emerging poet aspiring to make poetry a career or a performer […]
OPPORTUNITY TO PERFORM AT WONDERVILLE as part of the Wise Words Village Wise Words will be joining and supporting a new exciting festival in its first year and bringing along our Bell Tent Village & Poetry Stage. WonderVille Festival is a brand new intimate, magical musical festival coming to a stunning meadow overlooking the most […]
Our lovely friends at Wide Eyed Theatre have recently secured Heritage Funding to deliver an adventurous and intriguing project that explores and celebrates the history, myths and stories of smugglers around Kent and specifically Herne Bay. This project will enable local young people to discover the origins and explore the history of smuggling in their local […]
Each year we offer poets the chance write haiku length poems that will appear in windows and on poster within Canterbury’s busiest shopping centre. Poems need to be inspired by a shop on the list below or by the experience of shopping. If you choose Echo it might be a poem about shoes that carry you through life’s rich tapestry of experiences If you choose […]
We were totally overwhelmed by the number of entries we received from all across the world. There were entries from India, Africa, Japan and lots and lots from Scotland. It was very hard to judge them - some were drawn incredibly beautifully whilst others had obviously thought long and hard about the development of their character. Others […]