Thursday 22nd of June

9.30am - 12.30pm

Proclaim Room, The Studio

Dr Maria Sledmere & Dr Colin Herd

@mariaxrose @colinjherd

Dr Maria Sledmere is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. Her poetry collections include Cocoa and Nothing – with Colin Herd (2023), Visions & Feed (2022) and The Luna Erratum (2021). She is editor-in-chief of SPAM Press and leads Brilliant Vibrating Interface: Queering the Post-internet through Poetry and Practice, a project funded by the Edwin Morgan Trust.

Dr Colin Herd is Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. His poetry collections include Too Ok (2011), Glovebox (2013), Click & Collect (2017), You Name It (2019) and Cocoa and Nothing – with Maria Sledmere (2023). He is involved in many CW research projects including Creative Conversations; Outside-in / Inside-out; Influence Podcast.

About this Session

Offering a dynamic and practice-based approach for all Arts and Humanities subjects, this workshop fosters confidence and interdisciplinary conversation to uncover the core questions and challenges of research.

What happens when you characterise and 'act out' your thesis? Poets theatre is a playful, embodied practice of 'radical amateurism' that can help us overcome creative and critical blocks through a process of 'staging' your work for (and with) others. Colin Herd and Maria Sledmere will facilitate thoughtful engagement with performance as a means of research communication, knowledge exchange and reflective practice.

This workshop encourages researchers to use dialogue, storytelling, comedy and collaboration to stimulate new pathways within the doctorate.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will:

• Become familiar with poets theatre as a way of expressing research questions and reflection.
• Have gained experience in writing, performing and/or directing a short performance of their research.
• Have experimented in thoughtful engagement across disciplines through conversation, collaboration and audience participation.

Who might be interested?

This workshop may be of particular interest to practice-based researchers but is suitable for doctoral researchers working across any discipline at any stage in their project. It may be of extra relevance to researchers who wish to think about communicating their research to a wider audience, inviting collaborative input and/or developing their reflective practice.

Participant pre-requisities

Researchers working across any discipline at any stage in their project. Participants should come to the workshop with a working knowledge of their thesis.

Prior experience with poets theatre is NOT required for participation, however anyone who wants to familiarise themselves in advance may wish to read the following:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet-books/2010/04/what-is-poets-theater 

https://www.pomoculture.org/2013/09/03/poets-theater-an-introduction/ 

Participant access requirements

This workshop will involve a mix of writing, discussion and performance. For some, this performance may involve physical movement but for others performance could involve other methods such as recital or transcription.

Event contact: maria.sledmere@strath.ac.uk 

Click here to register

First published: 17 May 2023